This week we are welcoming back to the podcast, my wonderful friend Mary Hyatt. For those of you who don’t know, Mary is my coach and she has also become one of my closest friends. We are going to be talking about what we can all do during this crisis, to hopefully bring you some comfort and support.
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
- We are all experiencing something collectively – Everything feels very “off”.
- Our batteries are being drained – emotionally and mentally.
- We respond to stress in lots of different ways – Denial, Over-eating, Over-drinking. This is all about distracting ourselves from what is really going on.
- There are also other ways we respond to stress which can be highly emotional – Hyper Sensitivity, Anxiety, Depression.
- We are processing so much more information right now, it is understandably draining!
- Don’t expect as much from yourself during this time.
- Comparative suffering is adding shame and judgement whilst thinking about what you are feeling.
- We are all allowed to feel how we feel during this – This could be emotions such as Overwhelm, Exhaustion, Anxiety, Grief.
- We can only extend to others, what we are giving ourselves.
- There is not any “right way” to go through this.
- You get to choose what you do during this time, no one else.
- Be gentle and compassionate with yourself.
- We need to continue to bring in income the best we can right now.
- Think about how you can meet needs that are there and add value to people.
- You need to connect with people on a deeper level right now.
- Value yourself, you have skills that can make others thrive. Recognise that you have information that other people wish they had.
- Find meaning and purpose in the midst of all of this.
- You are in control of how your mind interprets this. Try to think “What can this make possible?”
- Look for the good things in every day. Be grateful for absolutely everything you have.
- Shifting the focus on what we have, multiplies it.
- Journaling – Write it down and then flip it so it comes from love instead of anger.
- Get out all of your feelings on paper – You can just throw it away or burn it if you want to.
- Utilise these free tools!
- Give yourself permission to rest, nurture yourself and ask yourself “what do I need?”
THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…
Be gentle on yourself during this time, don’t put pressure on yourself to be achieving things just because you are being told you need to, whether that’s because other people are saying it or you may be telling yourself. You are allowed to feel anxious, angry, depressed, frustrated right now and it is okay if you can’t quite function how you normally would. But remember, this will not last forever.
HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS
- An introduction to Mary Hyatt – 04:38
- The impact of the pandemic – 07:53
- Comparative Suffering – 21:05
- Expectations – 25:55
- Selling during this time – 33:43
- Tools that can help you – 45:15
Transcript below
Hello, and welcome to today's episode of the podcast. How are things going? You know what? I so genuinely mean that, because this time is so crazy tough for us ll, for lots of different reasons. I'm going to jump straight into today's episode, because today I decided to bring back a previous guest. Now, I thought this was the first time I had done this, but it actually turns out that Biz Paul has been on twice. Although technically, the second time he came on, he interviewed Paul and I for episode 100.
I think this is technically the first time I've had someone in that I've interviewed twice. So, I would like to welcome back to the podcast, my very beautiful, wonderful and smart friend, Mary Hyatt. As you know, Mary Hyatt is my coach, and has been my coach for some time, and I am very lucky that I now get to call Mary my friend, and we get to spend time with her in Nashville, or we did before all this happened, and she's been over here in the UK to see me.
Honestly, my husband and I love her and Bentley dearly. The fact that, A, she's a friend is one thing, two, she's my coach is another, but three, she honestly is so very smart when it comes to dealing with times that are tough. Mary has helped me through more things than I care to remember during the time that we've worked together. So, there was no one better to have on to talk to you guys to help you through this time.
Obviously, I've done a few different episodes. I did the motivation one, and I did the one that was kind of the special one just to say I am acknowledging it. But, today I wanted to bring Mary on, because actually if anybody can help me through these tough times with some good practical advice, and some gentle love, then she is the woman for the job. That's why I've brought her on. I'm going to not go on any longer. You know who Mary is. I'm going to link up to her in the show notes. She's truly wonderful. You need to check her out. I hope you enjoy today's episode, and I hope it brings you some comfort and some support.
Please do come and tag us both in, because I want Mary to see the difference she makes not only in my world, but everybody else's. I hope you enjoy today's episode.
I am very excited about today's episode. Because, although I've had this amazing lady on before, I am still super excited to bring her back to you. Welcome back to the podcast, Mary Hyatt.
Woot woot! It's like round two. Second season.
I know. Ching ching! Do you know what-
I'm so happy to be here.
What was funny was, I was telling Biz Paul, before we recorded that I was getting you back on and I was recording an episode. I said, “She's the only person who's ever been on the podcast twice.” I was like, “Oh no, hang on Biz Paul, you have.” Because of course he came on and did an episode, and then he came on and did the 100th episode where he interviewed Paul and I.
That was such a great episode.
He's great. He is, honestly. This is his job. He should totally be an interviewer type, presenter type thing. He loves it.
Oh, yeah. And I also secretly want him to be my best friend, so if you could kind of just give him the nudge that if he's looking for more friendships.
That is so funny. Honestly, you're going to think I'm making this up, but right before this I said, “Listen, Mary's coming into the group to do some stuff. Do you want to come in the group? I'll let you in to come and see what Mary's doing.” “I love Mary,” he said. He loves you.
I just adore him.
It's like a little romance.
He's so funny.
An introduction to Mary Hyatt
I'm so glad to bring the two of you together. He is funny. He is funny. And he's our sense of humour. Anyway, these people are listening to this going, “Get on with it, people.” As you know, and as I've just said, I have had the lovely Mary on before. But I'm just going to get Mary to introduce herself a little bit, in case you happened to miss the episode, which I will link up to the show notes. Then we will get on with today's episode. Mary, go ahead and tell everybody who you are, and why you're so wonderful.
Thank you. I am a life and mindset coach, and my favourite people to work with are high achieving entrepreneurs who are looking to find ways to bring some flow back into their hustle game. Because I think oftentimes we think we have to grind it out, work ourselves to the point of burnout and exhaustion. That's usually at the point where my clients find me is they're going, “Okay, my business is taking off, but my life is in shambles, or I'm just totally at the end of my rope. My relationships aren't that great. How do I get back to that place of really thriving in all areas of my life?
That's when I come in and go, “Okay, let's take a look at some of this mindset stuff. Let's take a look at what is controlling the show behind the scenes,” and help people really get to a place of living fully alive connected to their emotions, connected to their bodies, connected to their intuition, and really create just a powerful presence in their own life. I have a podcast that comes out every week, where we get into a lot of this mindset work. I also offer guided meditations to help people just create a new sense of awareness and consciousness that just aids in this ability to live fully alive, present for your life. Kind of a few little different hats, but all around consciousness and mindset.
Perfect. What was interesting is when I started off with Mary, I knew I needed something. I didn't know what it was. Even when Mary was like, “Yeah, I can do this. I can help,” I still didn't actually know what, or where or how. I didn't get the details. The funny thing is, now I look back and think I didn't have to get the details. I didn't need to know those things. The stuff you taught me, and the stuff that we worked through, and looked at, and the way you made me think, which was probably the biggest change in everything has changed and affected everything going forward.
The reason I wanted Mary on today's podcast, and why I was so keen to hurry up and do this as quickly as possible is because since, and we're recording this at the time, I've been on lockdown for like two weeks, I think. I'm in my second week. You've been on lockdown for about two weeks as well, haven't you?
Yeah.
Because of the Coronavirus, and everything that's going on with that. What's interesting is like I have been fine. I've been happy, and fairly calm, and relaxed about it all. The only thing I can put it down to is all this work I've done with Mary. All this self-development work, all these tools she's given me. All these kind of strategies that I've got. I wanted Mary to come on and talk about some of the things that why we're being affected, if we are being affected. Then, some of the cool tools and some of the strategies that you can do and you can try in order to help you manage the situation.
The impact of the pandemic
Let's start by talking about the fact of this situation, and some of the impact that you had seen that it's had on people in both personal and business.
Yeah. It really is such a heavy topic, because what I've noticed is people that are showing up personally are having a real mental crisis, emotional crisis. I think that, yes, we have the threat of the virus, and there's that part of it that's going on, but there is this energy in the air, and it's palpable. Like, you can feel it. I've had a lot of people, I think Theresa we've even talked about this. Of, nothing's really changed for us. We work from home. We're kind of used to doing Zoom and things online, and so it's not a big learning curve for us. However, there is this exhaustion that is present.
I feel more tired than I typically do. I feel like my bandwidth isn't quite what it normally is. I'm needing to sleep more often. I am having emotions show up that feel like they're coming out of nowhere. Yet it's like, oh my gosh, if you look at what's happening it makes total sense. But there is a collective energy. I think that what's important to understand about right now is that we're experiencing something collectively. All of us have an energy about us. If you think about back in the days when we got to see each other in person.
Remember these days.
Yeah, remember those days when you like hugged somebody?
Oh my God. You're crazy.
But, like everybody has a frequency to them. For example, if you walk into a room and you're talking to somebody and you're like, “Oh, the vibe's off in here, or that's like a wonky weird vibe. The energy's off in here.” These are things that we say. Different environments kind of have different energies. If you walk into a corporate office, there's a different energy, if you walk into a coffee shop, there's a different kind of energy there, or a restaurant. If you walked into a funeral versus a wedding. There's different energy.
Yeah.
But what's happening right now is collectively, the entire world is vibrating with one frequency. If you're sensitive at all, if you're an empath, if you're somebody who kind of just notices that, it's almost like our batteries are being drained. There's this collective energy of fear, of panic, of desperation. I think that there's varying forms of that, or degrees of that. I think even grief is a big one that I feel like is showing up right now, loneliness. But there is a collective energy that whether we are practising some kind of mindfulness or consciousness kind of practise, I think the average Joe can feel something's off here. Something is exhausting right now.
So, we are experiencing, my clients, my family, myself, a drain on our batteries, our mental and emotional batteries that no matter where we are in our station of life, I think everybody can agree that's happening.
Yeah. Sometimes I get this pit, this thing in my stomach that's like something's off, and you know like when something awful happens, and that awful feeling. Then, you'll wake up and you'll remember it, and it's back there, and you're like … It's almost like a very mild version of that where you're like, “Oh, something's not quite right here, and I don't really know what it is,” although you do, but you know what I mean? It's like why would that affect me like that? It's weird, isn't it?
I think that everybody listening, we are functioning adults. It's like we have our own businesses, we pay our bills, we make sure that we eat. We have a pretty great life, in the sense of our needs are met and things like that. To be shaken, to have something affect us in a certain way, it's kind of like this is not my norm. I'm typically able to handle myself and get through the day, and this is … We were joking on our Instagram. Unprecedented. That word is so overused. But it is.
None of us have been through this, and what it's kicking up for everyone is our old habituated stress response or trauma response. When I say old and habituated, what I mean by that is that every single one of us has been through things that are challenging, things that are hard. We have gone through traumatic situations. That could be a little-t trauma, or a big-T trauma.
Meaning, something that we might not even categorise as trauma, like something from childhood that we interpreted as traumatic, or that was hard emotionally for ourselves. And then some of us have actually been through the big T kind of really big losses, really traumatic events. Abuse, or loss, or death or something like that. And, we have a way that we have sort of on autopilot handled these situations. It's like rehearsed. It is a pattern. It is historical.
A lot of times, for us, when we experience something like what we're doing now, we're going to go into that autopilot stress response, trauma response, and that can show up in a bunch of different ways. It can show up like control. I'm going to go into hyper control. I'm going to make sure that I consume all the news. I know exactly what's happening. I know what's coming. That sort of hyper alert state, obsessive thinking. That's one way that we respond to stress.
Another way would be denial. This is not happening. I'm not going to look at it. I'm not going to look at any news. I'm going to go about business as normal and totally be in denial. It could look like specific coping mechanisms. So, overeating, over drinking. It's really interesting to see some of the stuff that's coming out, even as a joke, or even as like memes about the drinking. It's like, “Oh, there's a coping mechanism of drinking.”
It could look like, there's a lot of conversation around getting in shape right now. I'm going to use this time to get in shape. That's a coping mechanism, having control in our bodies. It could be binge watching Netflix. There's all different ways that we try to disassociate, distract ourselves from the intensity, from the pain that's showing up, and so we use something secondary that kind of numbs out the fear, numbs out the anxiety.
Or, we go into a hyper emotional response, which is like total hysteria, panic attacks, anxiety attacks, difficulty sleeping. We could go into depression. These are just a couple ways that we have a habituated old, past trauma or stress response. I think, Teresa, what you were mentioning was you were picking up on that in the body. Like you were feeling that pit in the stomach. For those of us who are body aware, then oftentimes we'll feel that tightness in our chest, tightness in our shoulders. These are all ways that our body is responding, habitually responding to this heightened place of stress.
What's interesting as well is … One, as you're going through the different ways to respond to this, I can see the different responses in different people. You know my husband Paul really well. Paul is going into fact, information, news overdrive. So he wants to watch the news, he watches the updates, he reads the things. He's getting all the reports. He wants to know it all. I'm going into the kind of, I do want to know but I don't want to get involved. So, it's like I will keep myself relatively informed, and then I just shut the door on it and I carry on and do what I'm doing.
But also, I have the default of I want to get in bed and drink a bottle of wine right now, and just wake me up when all this is done, because I don't want to have to deal with it. That's the most fascinating bit to me, and we were chatting very briefly and then we stopped, because we wanted to talk about this on here. I spoke to the group, to the academy, and I said, “How's everybody doing?” About a week ago. There was a generic kind of conversation going on about the people that work from home, the likes of me and you and a few of the academy members, where technically nothing has changed.
Actually for me in my world, I didn't lose many academy members. I have lost a couple, because obviously their business has been affected. There's a client on the agency side that had to stop because it was an event. But from a kind of income and a business point of view, and an amount of work I have to do point of view, that hasn't really changed either. So, technically I should be doing exactly what I'm doing, every single day.
Yet, we all agreed, to a greater or lesser extent, that for some reason we don't want to do it. Or, the motivation's not there. Or, our head is not in the right mindset. Even though I can tell myself, and this has come from all the work I've done with you, I can only control what I can control. I can only control my own mood. I can't affect the virus. I can't affect the news. I can't affect social media. So focus fully in on what I can control. There's still that thing that, God, any excuse just to go and like let's start another gin and tonic at three o'clock in the afternoon. Do you know what I mean?
Yeah.
It's weird. What do you think that is? Why is that affecting us?
I think it goes back to the battery analogy of really draining our batteries, and the collective energy. Because we're processing so much more information, especially if you're in a service-based industry where you are dealing with clients and customers who are all going through the same thing. You're having to hear the challenges and the struggles of what people are going through all day every day. It's like every time I get on the coaching call, for example, people are talking about it. If you are outside, like here we're going on a lot of walks in nature, everybody's talking about it.
You turn your computer on, you turn your phone on, it's everywhere. So, you're getting inundated with this energy suck, and I think that just that alone. It's like, have you ever had that moment where let's say you're in a really toxic relationship. And, it's taking up so much of your bandwidth, so much of your energy to think about this person, how they're treating you, what they're doing, “How dare they?” Every conversation you have with your questions or other people, you're gossiping about this relationship. Then you find yourself in the future, and that relationship is over, it's done with, you've moved on.
You go, “Oh my God, I have so much free time. Oh my God, I have so much space and energy to put towards a creative project.” Or, “I can't believe the surge of energy I have now that I'm outside of that toxic relationship.” We're in a toxic relationship right now. You know?
Yeah.
We're in the midst of kind of, this is all we're doing and talking about. I think first what comes to my mind is offering ourselves grace, and sort of not expecting ourselves to maybe do as much as we typically would be able to do when everything else is kind of in a relatively balanced state. We've just been like, had the car crash, and we're still in triage. We're still trying to figure out what the hell's going on. And, to expect ourselves to operate as a fully functioning person right now, to me is just unrealistic.
Even if you are doing work, and business as normal, and that hasn't changed for you, again, the collective. We can't underestimate the collective that's happening and the energy suck that's happening. I think that's what's going on.
Yeah, and when I think about, so my sister works for the NHS, the National Health Service here in the UK. Although she's not a direct nurse, doctor, her job is very much dealing, and in fact at the moment what it's doing is she's part of the trainings department. They are training all the new people coming in, because we're taking all these volunteers. She's almost in, you know the whole fight or flight thing, or when you're in some kind of situation that you just go for it, and you're just like … Like in it all the time. That's where she is right now.
Totally.
Because her job, and all those key people who are out there in the world doing a key job to do with this, their head is down. They're focused. They're just getting on with it, because they know they've got a job to do. Which is why I guess it feels even odder for the likes of us who can carry on and do our job, but our job isn't technically anything to do with this crisis. Obviously, it's impacted everybody in every way. But, it's not like I'm saving lives, or doing whatever.
That we feel a bit weird about it, because it's like we haven't got that kind of head down, let's get going, because I've got to do this because I've got to help save lives. It's just a case of like, yeah, I'll just carry on doing what I'm doing.
Comparative Suffering
I'm so glad you're bringing this up, because I just did a live on this yesterday about the idea of comparative suffering. This would be like the equivalent of having survivor's guilt. You know?
Yeah.
But comparative suffering means you look at what you're going through, and you start adding shame and judgement to your process. You say, “I shouldn't be complaining. I'm not on the front lines.”
Yeah.
Or, “I don't have Coronavirus. I'm not having to deal with that. I should be grateful for the fact that I'm even alive.” Or, “Who am I to sit here and wish that things were different when not that much has changed?” Or, “Gosh, I should be more grateful.” We are trying to deny the fact that we're feeling scared, or anxious, or tired. Or, that we just don't have as much energy that we typically have. But what we're doing is we are looking at the way everybody else is responding. Or, kind of like with your sister, you're looking at these people who truly are having a survival trauma response.
Again, the fight, flight or freeze, that part of our brain is when we go into fight, it's survival. It is, I have to show up in reactivity, and lean in, and do that. That's the job of a first responder. What's amazing and interesting about this is that it doesn't help anyone else, or ourselves, to be in comparative suffering. It's kind of like, I don't know if your mom or dad ever said this to you, Teresa, growing up. But it was like when you would eat dinner, my mom, she would always say, “Make sure that you clean your plate. Eat all of your food, because there's children starving in Africa.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know that we were part of the clean plate club.
Yeah.
What's so interesting about that is me finishing or leaving food on my plate does not directly affect those children who are starving in Africa. It has literally no bearing on them at all.
No. It's not like it's going to be flown to them.
Right.
It's so funny thinking about that now as an adult going, “Of course,” but it's weird, but that totally was a thing.
Yeah, and that was bred out of the depression era, and having this idea of not having enough, and making sure that you always had enough. That was a direct trauma response. So, it's interesting though, now, it's the same kind of thing. If we try to hoard our love, our empathy and say it's only reserved for the people on the front lines. I don't really have any compassion or empathy if you're still able to pay your bills, or you still are healthy, or you still have everything intact. No, I can't give you that empathy.
When we're trying to relegate and create almost like a hierarchy of suffering. Like 10 is, you're on the front lines, or you have Corona. One is, you have everything almost exactly the same. It's almost like creating this hierarchy and then deciding how you dole out compassion. This person qualifies and checks all the boxes, and can get compassion, and empathy, and grace and love. This person, they're fleshed in the stock market. They've still got checks coming in. They don't get any empathy.
It's like, wait a minute. The truth is, we all get to go through this. We all get to feel how we feel moving through this, and that can be overwhelm, exhaustion, anxiety, anger, grief. No matter what your external circumstances are, everybody, to me, has access to the same unconditional love, and empathy and grace. We have to extend that to ourselves, so that we can generously dole that out to others.
Do you know what? I feel like I've been very or tried to be really open about everyone's own opinions, and how they're dealing with it and whatever. But that is such a powerful thing that you just said there. Because like you said, people are out there going, and I have done it, and I'm going to hold my hands up and go I looked at, say my parents, even. They're retired. They don't go out very often. They pretty much stay in the house all the time. In your head you're like, “What are they moaning about? Nothing's changed for them.”
To be fair, they like to moan all the time. But, in your head you are thinking that. Then you're thinking, “I feel sorry for so-and-so, because that's their job, and normally they do this, and their life has really been affected.” But actually, you're so right. Everyone is entitled to deal with it how they want to deal with it, and feel what they need to feel.
Expectations
I think having that grace for us, in the sense of I'm allowed to feel like that. But also, the grace of other people and go, “You're allowed to deal with that how you need to deal with that” is amazing.
Exactly. And we can only extend to others what we are giving to ourselves. If we are judging others, you can take that all the way back yourself and realise, I'm judging myself. It's hard on social media. Like, I'm sure that you've noticed this trend. But it's like there are the entrepreneurs who are saying, “Use this time. Write your book. Create your course. Do these amazing things right now.” Then you have some of the other people in the other camp, which would be more of the spiritual camp that would say, “Use this time to rest, and to replenish, and to slow down, and to become more conscious.”
I think any time somebody says, “Do this,” or, “Don't do this,” “Make sure that you approach it in this way.” There's been a lot of, it's interesting there's a lot of shame going on. Like I saw this meme the other day that said something about if you don't come out of this having written your next book, then you only have yourself to blame. I just thought, oh, so much shame in that. I just thought we have a lot of pressure to make sure that we go through this time the right way. That we utilise this time the right way.
And if we don't, then somehow we were either lazy, or we were hustling too much. It's like we're on either side of that coin, somebody else is at fault. The way that entrepreneurs go through it who are trying to crush it, people who are trying to slow down, either camp is going to be at fault. That's why I think slowing down to check in with yourself, and this is going to be an individual type of journey. And asking your personal self, what is it that I want for this time?
If I could go through this in a way that was intentional, in a way that was mindful and conscious, divorced from expectations of what people think I should be doing right now, or the expectations that maybe I'm hearing in the back of my mind from my parents, or from an old mentor or from my peers. How do I want to choose to walk through this? Do I feel like I do need some rest, and to disconnect, and to give myself permission to shut off for a little bit, or take a nap, or end my day at 3:00 p.m. instead of 5:00 p.m.? What do I need?
Or, do I feel like, you know what, the truth is I do have a little bit of reserve of energy, and this is actually exciting that I get to pour into a creative project or to do some organising that I haven't done until now. That this is an opportunity for that. But taking away the judgement piece of this. That there's not any right way to go through this. But checking in with self and recognising I get to choose how I move through this in a way that honours my heart, my purpose in this life.
My body needs rest. Like when we really honour what is showing up for us now, and making our decisions from that place, versus trying to measure it against how everybody's saying that we should go through this time.
Yeah. This is one of the reasons I love working with you. Because, you say stuff and I'm like, “Geez, Mary.” Like you're so wise and right. Not like there's a right or wrong way, but it's just the stuff you say that makes me think and thinks, yeah. Because I, and I'm thinking back of all the times I've talked about this already. I think I've been okay, but I'm trying to use this time for good. I'm trying to, and I've been encouraging people.
Like I said, I'm trying to think now, I hope I've been saying it the right way. But encouraging hopefully is the right word to say, listen this is a good time. If you do have the energy and you do have the inclination, this is a great time. If you can't do your daily business thing that you normally do, then all these other things that you don't have time for … I've had a conversation with someone just today who's starting a podcast because now they've got the time. I've been trying to encourage people to use this time for good, and for an effect.
But like you said, maybe I haven't thought that maybe that their head space just isn't in it. You know the first thing that Paul did, which this will not surprise you. The minute he got wind that maybe it was locking down, he went and bought paint, and he bought rollers, and he bought stuff. Because all he could think was, “If I'm in this house for this length of time, think of all the jobs I can get done.”
Oh my gosh. Yes.
You know what's interesting? And we had this conversation last night and I thought he needs to talk to Mary. He hasn't done a thing yet, and he is beating himself up, and he doesn't understand why. I don't think I understood why until we've just had this conversation. Because he is so engineery, military, black/white, so I think he isn't quite understanding why he has not the motivation to do it. Because every weekend, because he is working from home, so it's not in the week. But every weekend he's like, “Right, I'm going to do it this weekend.” Then it gets to Saturday, he's like, “I don't want to do it.” Then he's all like, “Why aren't I doing it? What's wrong with me?”
Isn't that amazing? Because that's the judgement and the shame.
Yeah.
It needs to be different than what it is. I should be in a different place than I am. That is shame. That comes in, and it's saying … Bentley, my boyfriend, has felt the same way. Like, “Gosh, I should be doing X, Y, Z. I should be working on my men's styling business. I should be doing all this stuff, and I literally want to just sleep.” I've just said to him, and I've been saying this to my clients, “Then just sleep.”
Because the reality is, you're not going to sleep forever. It's not like you're going to be comatose for the next three, four weeks. But there is something internally that's saying, “Take a break.”
Yeah, yeah.
I even said that to myself yesterday because I realised one of the things that you and I have been working on is getting a membership site up and running for myself.
Yeah.
And I was putting so much pressure on myself, and it wasn't until yesterday that I had the revelation, I haven't been doing hardly anything with it. I kind of had a surge of energy, and I did some stuff, and then I haven't been working on it for about a week. I said to myself, “Oh.” The reality is I'm doing my normal day-to-day work. Every day, I'm having coaching clients, and doing my podcast, and whatever else. Then I'm expecting myself to be able to do even more.
Like now let's tack on a new project, more creativity, things that require a large learning curve for myself. I was having so much judgement like, “What's wrong with me? Why can't I do this? This doesn't feel like it's that much.” Then it's like, because I'm doing what I'm normally doing and then expecting myself to have a reserve of energy to do even more and be “productive” during this time.
I'm like, okay, the truth is I think I need to take two days off, and I'm going to do that next week. I actually, because I've been doing a lot of kind of projects on the weekend as well. I was like, I just want to sleep. I just need a break. I know that for myself, taking two days off, it doesn't mean I'm going to totally abort this project or not do it, but it might mean that my deadline gets pushed out a little bit. It might mean that this is going to happen later than I thought.
But, that's where we bring in this extra gentleness and compassion and just go, it's okay. It's okay that you don't have the energy, or the reserve. And, it doesn't even make sense. Just honour the fact that you don't have it, and sort of the resistance of what is even creates more of the suffering or more of the exhaustion. It's like, just let's be honest for a second and just admit, no, I'm freaking tired. Great. [crosstalk 00:33:15]
Yeah. Like you said, you don't even need an answer to it. You don't even need to go, but why? Because again, we've had this conversation like, we have been sleeping more than we've ever slept. We've had more good quality sleep. And we're waking up exhausted. We're like, “What is wrong with us?” We're literally going, “What time did we fall asleep?” And we're counting up on our fingers how many hours we've had.
Totally. It's really odd, but like you said you just need to go, well that's what I need right now.
Selling during this time
A question about the work side, because one thing that's come up. Before we get into a few tools, and I'm conscious on our time, but one thing that's come up a lot in the academy and in my own head is the selling right now. I am not keen. This is just my personal opinion. I am not keen on people using the situation and exploiting that situation. I received an email the other day where someone actually wrote the words “pandemic offer” and I was like, holy moly, man.
Gag.
Yeah. That did not sit nice for me. I didn't say or do anything. I just thought that would not be my bag, thanks very much. However, on the other side of the coin, not saying I would go out with something like that. But, by the time this episode comes out, we would have already done it, but I'm doing a webinar on helping people how to take their business online, because I've identified that what I talk about and what I do every single day is actually a tool that people really need now.
Initially I was like, “How can I help people? What can I do?” I put together this webinar, and it took a lot of conversations in my own head to go, “Do you know what? It's absolutely fine for me to give a free hour.” People who have seen my stuff and have done my stuff before know I ram it in. I don't hold back. You get good stuff. This is not a waste of anybody's hour. But then at the end, I am going to offer the academy, and I am going to offer my 90-day programme.
Even saying that out loud still makes me feel a little bit like, “Oh, that feels awkward.” And, is it? Am I?
I was going to say, we'll talk about this on our next session call. No, I'm so glad that you're bringing-
This is so private-
I'm so glad you're bringing this up. Because to me, during this time, selling is incredibly important. I think that we can all agree that one of the things that we're feeling stress about is not just this virus, but is the economic impact that this is having on small businesses, and service industry and all of that. There are some real, real implications that are happening. To me, and I would say that this is something that I've been learning from my dad. I know you've listened to him as well.
He has been talking about the smartest thing that we can do to ensure that five months from now, six months from now, a year from now we are still able to pay our bills and be able to provide for our families is if we continue to bring in income as best we can right now. To have products and offerings that we can sell.
The way that I gut-check this is I'm looking at if I were to sell from a place of integrity, from a place of authenticity, what could I bring to the table right now? Because I think for most of us, we have something that really could help someone else. I just heard a stat that said in December Zoom has 10 million users, and today they have 100 million users.
Geez.
10 million to 100 million users.
Wow.
What we don't realise is for most of us who are entrepreneurs, we have hd to figure out how to get our services and our products online, and offer our services online. And we've done that already. We've been through the learning curve and the awkwardness of figuring out how to do Facebook ads, how to create a course, how to get that up. How to sell, email, all that stuff. Everything that you teach. We have learned that.
For most people, they don't have any freaking clue how to do that. So, if you think about all of the people that are having to pivot right now, and change what they're offering, what they're giving, changing from a brick and mortar to a virtual offering. There are a million different things and steps in that process that people don't know how to do. Something that you have, for example, that you take as a complete like, of course everybody knows how to do this, people don't know it.
People don't know it. So for me, like one of the things that I've shifted in my business is that I have started to offer a three-month coaching package, which I typically only do a six-month or a year package. It's all paid upfront, and I have changed to do a sort of coaching in crisis, three-month package, that is helping people navigate emotionally and mentally and through their business the next three months. That is sort of a short-term kind of package, that has a payment plan option with it.
Because I'm going, I have amazing things that I could offer people to help them shift, and pivot, and stay emotionally and mentally healthy right now. That's something that I've done. But that was from a place of, how can I meet a need that is there? What value can I bring to the table? That's kind of different than what I maybe typically offer, but I take for granted, that is really valuable right now. I think for everybody, there is something.
Like for example, if you're a photographer, and you're used to offering your products one-to-one, and you're doing portrait sessions, or you're doing family sessions, something that people need right now is to learn how to take high qualities selfies from their phone. Because they aren't going to hire a photographer.
Yeah. No one's going out to get a photographer. Exactly.
Right. So you could offer something that gave people a paid option for 10 steps on how to learn how to take a selfie with an iPhone and a tripod, and that's it, that looks like a professional lifestyle photo. Things like that. Like, changing the way you're thinking, but still showing up in service. We talked about this on the last conversation that we had, Teresa, that idea of the relationships. The idea of the one-to-one. Connecting with people on a more personal level right now I think would be one of the wisest things that you could do. But, absolutely show up, and sell, and charge.
The funny thing is, when I talk, and we've talked about what you do, I can sit here with 100% confidence and go, you can make a big difference. Therefore, yes you should go out and sell what you do. Because you have some tools, and tactics and things that could honestly change someone from sitting there thinking, “My world's about to end,” because when you get yourself into that state, that literally is kind of the level you get to. To, “Right, let's put some things in place. Let's talk this through. Let's do all this.” And actually get them coming out of this at the other end feeling way better, and in a way better position than now.
But it's just weird when you talk about your own stuff that you're like … This is the silly thing. This is what I do. I know how to help people with this. I know how to turn, and I've got all these ideas. I've spoken to certain friends. I'm like, “Do this now. You need to do this, because you can't do your job.” They're like, “Yeah.” And they've done it, and it's been brilliant.
So I know I can offer some good value. And the funny thing is, and Mary has just done a live into the academy. Because one of the things I'm trying to do is I'm trying to serve those people better. I'm trying to, the people who do paint me, who are part of my community in the academy, this is where I guess my free stuff is coming from. I'm looking at ways that I can add value to them and give them more, and support them more.
Rather than necessarily, because I have seen it, I've seen lots of people go out and go, “Here you go. Here's my stuff for free now.” It's, like I said, that's no good to me. Because if I can't run my business, I'm not going to be around in three months, so it's no good to me just going, “Here's my free stuff,” because that's what you're having now, because I'll soon no longer be around.
Right.
It's no good to anybody else. Because they're coming to me to get help, because they want to continue being paid for their thing. They want to continue making money. Surely, hopefully people realise that's the world.
Yeah. I had a client, a potential client of mine that I was talking in a discovery call with yesterday, and she said, “I don't know if I can pay your fees, and I'm nervous to pay this in this time right now.” I said, “If I can't get you to recoup what you invest in coaching,” in the six-month package that she was looking at, “I have no business being a coach.” It's like, my job is to help people continue to make money. By investing in coaching with me, or like somebody investing in the academy with you, or doing your one-on-ones with you, the whole reason we have jobs is so that we make people's businesses thrive.
I think everybody listening has an element of that, whether it is a coaching, a service, a customer package, a course, there is something that is going to help somebody thrive right now. And to really have a moment of valuing yourself, valuing what you're bringing to the table and recognising, you know what? This is something normal for me. But the truth is somebody, somewhere is praying for the information that I have to offer.
Yeah.
Like really, like praying going, if I could just know what to do on X, Y, Z thing. It doesn't even have to be something that's like super life changing. I know so many people right now that they're so freaking bored at home, they're looking to learn new languages. They're looking to learn how to start a new hobby. They don't want to sit at a computer for hours and hours and figure out how to do it. If they could get a quick course on how to learn photography, or do pottery at home, or painting.
Again, I don't want to make it sound like it has to be something that is like from a heart place, like it's changing your life. Your business, regardless, is needed.
Do you know what? I just want to say because I've never said it ever I don't think. I talk about the work we've done, and the difference it's made to me personally and in my own head, and with my own anxiety and my relationships. But, what I do need to tell people is the money I spent on you, I've recouped in the first or second month of us working together, because there was two clients that I was working for, I was working with, and both of them we had done way too much work for.
I remember coming to Mary going, “I think I should try and charge them more,” and that was not in my thing. I had no confidence to do that at all at that time. Mary talked me through it, and we talked it out, and I sent them both those emails, and they both came back with ease and went, “Of course, Teresa.” Because we'd done it in a right way, and I'd got it.
But it was my fear that I wouldn't have done it. The money that I got off both those clients for work I'd already done paid for you. I've never said that before, but seriously.
That's so cool.
The life changing stuff is amazing, from a financial point. And like you said, I always used to think about, when I had agency clients, I used to say to them, “How many of your thing would you have to sell to pay for me? Because if I can't help you sell that, then,” like you said, “why am I in the job?”
Yeah. Exactly.
Tools that can help you
Really conscious of time. You've been so generous to me today. There's a couple of tools that I can think of off the top of my head that have really helped me that I want to sort of bring up to you to talk on. Then anything else that you can think of on top of that, give me a shout. The first thing that I think I've just already said at the beginning is the fact of, you taught me, because when we first started working together, I lost a big client and I was panicking. Like, “I haven't got the money. Where is this money going to come from?”
One thing that you said to me, which has forever stuck with me and helped me under so many situations, and in fact, I said it just today to Mr. Paul earlier on. Because one thing that you said to me is, “What if we're exactly where we're meant to be right now? What if this is exactly what's meant to be happening for a reason? You can't see it yet, but what if its?” That, for me, and that in this situation feels like, amen.
Isn't it such a powerful shift of how to see something? That question, I like kind of open questions like that, like, what if this were the exact place that you were meant to be? Or another way of asking that question is, what does this make possible?
That's a great one for me.
Yeah, it's like we can all gree that there's a lot of this that is hard, that is awkward, that just plain sucks. I don't mean to diminish that, because I think that that's very real, and I want to just acknowledge that this is really challenging. And, it's like it makes me think about Viktor Frankl's book, Man In Search of Meaning. Is that the title I'm thinking? Yeah. So it's written from the concentration camps.
Yes. I know this book. Yeah.
And it's amazing, because it is about finding meaning, finding purpose, finding those golden nuggets in the midst of the poop. You know?
Yeah.
It's like, a friend of mine, she would say, “The shit with the champagne.” You know?
Yeah, yeah.
It's like we are being served a shit sandwich. And also, where is that thread of blessing? Where is this sort of right place, right time? What is available? If I could change the meaning, and I think that that, our personal power is in the meaning that we give our circumstances. Because the truth is, like you mentioned earlier, there are things we cannot change or control. The thing that we can change and the thing that we can control is our mind, our thoughts, our beliefs, how we're interpreting what's happening. That is where we find our personal power. That is where we get back that sense of, okay, I can get through this.
How we interpret this, and that just means the meaning that we're giving something. Because I can look at something. It's really interesting. You look at the same situation that's happening to literally everyone in the world. There are a million different ways that we're interpreting what's happening. And where I gain strength, and courage in the ability to show up in adversity is how I am training my mind to think about what's happening. How I am disciplining my mind to interpret this in a way that is life giving versus taking away my power, feeling like a victim.
So when I am thinking about this current situation, I want to think, what does this make possible? That isn't sugar coating it, and that is not putting a positive psychology spin on it and going, everything is rainbow and unicorns. It's going, where can I find the blessing amidst everything? How can I interpret what's happening? What is the meaning I'm giving this? What does this mean? And choosing something that feels empowering.
Yeah. Again, I love the fact that you're not just sat there going, we're trying to make this all sweetness and light. Because it's not. And we know that. But it is going, okay, so looking for those good bits. So what is good about this? That kind of comes to my next point that you've done a lot of work with me around is the grateful stuff. I know that actually this isn't a throwaway thing. We should be more grateful, like you said at the beginning. This is definitely a …
Paul and I talk about this all the time, because when Mary says thank you, she says it about five times, “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.” We love that, and that's something that's sat with me this whole time, that being genuinely and absolutely wholeheartedly grateful for things. Right now, I've got a teenage son in the next room who is going to be 17 in a couple of days time, and he wants to start his driving lessons, and this sucks, right?
Yeah.
It does suck. He's 17. He doesn't want to be stuck at the house. But, I have to sit here and I have to have conversations with him, and Paul and myself. Because that's the other thing. I don't anybody sat there thinking Mary and I are sat here on a higher level going, “How easy is this stuff?”
No, yeah. Right.
Because it isn't, and I have been doing it nowhere near as long as Mary, and she will happily say that you are still, this is a practise.
Yes.
This isn't a switch, done, I'm awesome at this now. But I'm having to constantly go, “Do you know what? We are lucky. We have a nice house, so we're sat in a nice environment. I'm getting to cook?” Honestly Mary, you should see the food I'm cooking. It's the bomb.
I love it.
Like food. We are going to come out of this two times bigger than we are now. But, we're getting nice meals. The weather's not too bad. We get to go in our garden. We get to go for a walk. We get to watch TV, and Netflix, and Disney Plus, and we get to FaceTime. I'm trying to remind myself and all the others that actually there is lots to be grateful for. I know it doesn't feel like it sometimes, but there is.
Yeah, and I remember I was sitting at my birthday party. This was, I don't know, five years ago. I was with my girlfriends. And I asked everybody. It was me and three of my girlfriends. We were all collectively going through divorces at the same time. Everybody was just complaining about their life, where they were, lack of relationships. Everything, it just sucked. I said, being me, I said, “You know what? It's my birthday, and I would actually like to go around and share what we're grateful for. What can we look and find that we can be grateful for?”
I just said, “I'm grateful for my home. I'm grateful that I have a bed, that I have air that I can breathe, that I have clean water.” My friend Lindsley, who if you listen to the podcast with me, she's a cohost on the podcast and she's hysterical. She was like, “I didn't come to this earth to be thankful for my bed. She was like, “That's not enough!” It was so funny. She was just having like an adult temper tantrum. You know?
That is brilliant. That is brilliant.
She was like, “I hear what you're saying, but f-you,” you know?
Yeah.
It was so great, and I thought I love that, because we really can have those temper tantrum moments of being like, “I want more!” And yet, we are sleeping in a bed. We do have clean water. It can be as simple as that. Sometimes that's frustrating. And yet, shifting the focus on what we have, it multiplies it. We start seeing things that we were just completely unaware of before now. That's a beautiful practise, and it is, I'm glad that you said it's a practise, because it is something you have to practise at, and you have to attune your eyes to see and shift your focus to see things. What am I grateful for today? That's a beautiful practise to be practising right now.
Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Then the last one I've got, which really helps me, and you'll know it is, because you tell me to do this all the time. It's got a bit of a joke again in my house is to journal things out. I'll journal all that out. Because, again, it's like in hand with that I'm going to say, you saying to come from love. Because, one thing, and I talked about this on a podcast episode that will be out before this one. One thing that I do when I journal out, I journal the angry stuff.
If anybody ever got hold of my journals and saw what I put in in there, they would be like, “You're mean.” But I journal the angry stuff, and then I go, “What would happen if I came from love? How would I react to this? How would I feel about this?” Oh my God. That shift is huge. You, when we came over to Nashville, we did a lot of work around this. We didn't come over just so we could pick Mary's brains, but we got talking about something, and again it was like, gosh that's so interesting.
To write it down is one thing. But then to also flip it. Once you've done the angry stuff, you'll see I am able to then write the nice stuff, because I've got the angry stuff out of my system. Then I can go, what if, and then do you know what? At the end of that I go, “You're a jerk, Teresa.” With no judgement . But like, yeah, you probably shouldn't have behaved like that. Let's think of a new way to behave.
It's so good to get that out. It's like the verbal diarrhoea. It's kind of the journaling process of just like … Get it out. Get out all the angst, get out all the frustration, the resentment, the anger. All the things that we feel like we can't socially feel or express, get it out on paper. You know what? You can throw that paper away. You can burn it, which I know a lot of writing coaches suggest, this sort of like stream of consciousness and then burn it afterwards.
But I think that second part of it is so powerful. What would love do? What would love say? If I came from love, what would that look like? When you attune to the vibration, the highest vibration of love, unconditional love, it makes you see things in a totally different way. It makes you say things in a totally different way. It gives you deeper empathy for the people who might be driving you crazy in your life. You start seeing things in a new way.
Just having the invitation for your brain to see something in a new light, with different perspective, new understanding, new awareness, you're going to see things. You're going to have breakthroughs and ahas, and releases that you wouldn't have had otherwise. I think right now, journaling is such a powerful tool. I actually, on my podcast, Living Fully Alive podcast, two episodes ago I had one of my dear friends, Allie Fallon on, and she talked about the power of writing, especially right now. So go check out that episode, so you can [crosstalk 00:55:42] into that.
Yeah, I'll link up to it.
But, what's amazing is that this is such a cathartic tool that's free. Anybody can do it, and I think that's important right now is the free tools. And so, I think that you're dead on. You get to the end and you're like, “Okay.”
I'm going to be so honest here. I'm going to give you an example of what this would look like in practise. When Mary and I first started working together, my stepdaughter still lived at home, and me and my husband had been together a few years, but as you could imagine with teenage stepdaughter and you're the stepmom, there's going to be a few issues there.
There were times where she would do something that I wouldn't find okay, and I would be angry at my husband because he hadn't dealt with it in the way that I would've liked him to, which meant that we would've had arguments. Not only am I angry at her, and I'm angry at him. I would sit there, and I'd write it all out and I'd be like, “I'm really angry. I can't believe she did this. I can't believe he didn't stand up for me, and I can't believe he didn't think this was okay,” and da, da, da, da, da.
Then I finished, and then I would pause and then I'd go, “What if I came from love?” I would think, my poor husband. My poor husband is stuck right in the middle right now. He is trying to do the best for his daughter, and he's trying to do the best for me, and I'm having a go at him, his daughter's having a go at him, and he right now is lost on how to deal with this. My poor daughter, my poor stepdaughter, this is new. She's got this new woman in her world that is telling her she likes it in a certain way, and that's not the way she used to do it.
Again, even saying it now, my heart can feel that. My heart can go, “Oh, you poor, poor people.” And almost taking me out of the equation and looking at it from a love point of view. It just literally went … There you go. That's over. Done now. Thanks. Don't get me wrong. Probably the next day I was having to do it again.
Yeah, totally.
But, the point was at that point I was like, “That feels so much better now.” Yeah, the journaling thing for me is huge. Mary, before you go, anything else that you think we should be thinking about and concentrating on now to help us through and maybe motivate this a bit, maybe just do what we need to do right now?
I think one of the things we sort of mentioned already, but is just giving ourselves permission to rest.
Yeah.
I think we can't say that enough, like really nurturing. I love the idea of nurturing one's self. That starts with the question of asking ourselves, pausing and saying, what do I need? I think that I instruct people to do this all the time, but I think right now, we need to do this every single day. It might shift every single day. What do I need? You might need to do this several times a day. If you find yourself feeling kind of thin, on thin ice, like you're about to lose it. You're kind of emotionally fragile.
If you're feeling like, I just can't do what I typically can do, pause. Check in. What do I need? Do you need to eat? Do you need to hydrate? Do you need to go on a walk? Do you need to stretch? Do you need to phone a friend? Are you feeling lonely? Do you need to journal something out? Book a therapy appointment? Be done for the day? Have a glass of wine? Take a bath? Whatever it might be. What do I need? That, to me, is such a powerful question right now. Do you need help? Do you need somebody to teach you how to do something that you're frustrated with? What do I need?
Then honour that answer. Whatever comes to you, even if it feels ridiculous or silly, this is I think one of the things that we're collectively learning is how to receive help right now. Most of us are pretty self-sufficient, and used to figuring it out. Right now, all of us are going to need help that we didn't need before, and this is where honouring the internal request comes from of doing what it is that your self is asking for. Making the call. Stopping and turning off your computer, and going and having lunch. Or getting off the couch and going to your bed to take a nap. Whatever it might, honouring that. So, what do I need, and then respecting and honouring the answer and doing it.
I love that. I love that. Then, having no judgement at the end. If that's what I need right now, that's what I need. That, normally, is perfectly fine. Right now, that is so fine, because of everything. Mary, as always you are just a joy in my world, and so wise. I just want you all to know that Mary's actually younger than me, and yet when I talk to Mary it's like she's this wise Buddha woman who just is just amazing. Amazing, amazing.
Old soul, baby.
You have. You have. You've been on this earth for a really long time.
Yeah.
You've been there, done that, seen it, [crosstalk 01:00:37]-
You're telling me. Whoo.
She's exhausted, man. She is exhausted. Mary, thank you so, so much. I love you dearly, and I hope everyone's enjoyed this. I want you all to take this in and let us know what you think. Thank you so much, Mary.
Thank you for having me. This was awesome.
Man, honestly, I love her so much. I am so, so lucky. The universe or something decided that Mary and I should meet and be best mates. I really hoped that's helped. I really hope you've enjoyed that episode. For me, Mary just has a really good take on things, and a very wise way of thinking about things, and helps me see things in a different light. I could not be more grateful for that. If you did enjoy this episode, then I really do urge you to go onto social media, tag me, tag Mary, screenshot the podcast or whatever you've been watching and listening on.
Watching? You don't watch this. You listen to it. Anyway, whatever you've been listening on, and please do come and text in, because I'd love to know that you enjoyed this episode. Back next week with some more practical stuff, in terms of driving your business forward. I think we might be looking at doing some stuff online, actually, and how you can take maybe your offline business online. Anyway, I will see you next week. Try and have an amazing week. Until then, I will speak to you soon.
