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Jul 04 2019

A Guide to Creating a Burnout-Proof Lifestyle for Entrepreneurs

 

We are all super human! We leverage technology, people, resources and time to design, create and amass wealth. We conquer our goals and live our dreams. But do we really? If we are truly super human why are we burning out? Over the last decade, burnout among employees and yes, entrepreneurs too, have been on the rise. In the Forbes article ‘How Can We Stop Entrepreneurs From Burning Out?’, Maiko Schaffrath highlights that 72% of entrepreneurs report mental health concerns and founders are 30% more likely to experience depression than another member of the public. Are you still aiming to be super human? It is becoming increasingly more important for entrepreneurs to create a lifestyle that allows them to create impact in all areas of their lives…without burnout.

Alison’s Story

Alison pre-dates over-working to early 2008.  She was at the tipping point of her career at the height of the recession.  She was working as a retail manager and her team was cut by 30%.  At that time, she felt so blessed to have a job, that she started making up for her absent team.  She did her job, plus that of a visual merchandiser, human resources, inventory control and cashier.  She was committed to having her store continue to perform out of fear of losing her job. Before she knew it, 55-hour work weeks became the norm.   As her career grew the more she worked, choosing her career over her personal life, going to the gym and even close relationships.

Now fast forward to 2019, she was so used to working 55+ hours a week, one day at her desk she recounts feeling a little “off”. She felt really dizzy, but kept pushing, when all the signs said stop. The truth was she didn’t know how to stop even if she wanted to.  Shortly after, she woke up on the floor, with only the memory of getting a glass of water.  She was rushed to the emergency room, with dangerously low hemoglobin levels. Her female physician shared with her that her experience was not uncommon. In fact it was a common trait that she recognized among women.  That life changing experience led Alison to truly understand that sacrificing her health was just not worth it.  Since then she started making conscious lifestyle changes to put herself first. She now has a hard stop at the end of the day, doesn’t work weekends unless it is necessary (only a few things fall in that category), and don’t check email after 6pm. The new Alison now says, “I make time for me; I still love my job and it is very important to me, but not as much as my health.”

As an entrepreneur myself, I am no stranger to burnout. I am a wife, mother and business owner. Those are three full time jobs that despite the best attempt at balance, it all fell apart. I was working 16+ hour days with very little sleep, a racing mind and very little time for family, friends and non-business related activities. Selfcare? What was that? For several months I had gone without even a quiet hot chocolate moment. Some days I felt like I was crushing it. Other days, it was crushing me. Then it did! I was burnt out. One Friday afternoon my body put up an unstoppable and undeniable sign of protest and I was wiped out for three days. I thought I was superwoman, with all my workflows and technological efficiencies. I had a system for everything…except preventing burnout.

Why do so many entrepreneurs, especially female entrepreneurs burn out? I believe it is a combination of not being in tune with our bodies and our inability to create a lifestyle with an effective work-life blend. When you are able to listen to your body and understand when it reaches thresholds, you can start creating a lifestyle that incorporates your body’s needs as well as those of your business.

Here are 3 of my most recommended tips to entrepreneurs to create a burnout-free lifestyle:

  1. Create Blend vs Balance

 

Photo: www.pexel.com

All your life you have probably heard about work-life balance. The truth is you cannot truly separate the two to create separate entities to achieve balance. They are all blended together. As such, creating a blend is much more realistic, achievable and effective. Instead of trying to work 8 hours on your business and spend 8 hours with your family, look for opportunities to create a blend that helps you achieve all your goals. For example, if you are completing client follow ups, you may opt to do that while your child is taking a nap so you can be available for story or movie time when they wake up. Or perhaps you will create a work calendar and schedule that you share with you partner with a mix of morning and evening availability to meet your client’s needs, but also make time for a couples breakfast once each week.

Creating a blended lifestyle starts with identifying what matters most and creating ways to infuse them into your schedule in a practical and effective way. What step can you take today to start creating your work-life blend?

  1. Signs to Delegate vs Danger

Photo: www.pexel.com

As an entrepreneur it can be hard to delegate. And that may be true for a variety of reasons. Perhaps you are not able to make the time to train someone, lack of resources or perhaps no one will quite do it the way you need it done. While no one will care for your business the way you do, as your business grows and demands increase, without delegation, you get closer and closer to the danger zone. Delegation does not mean abandonment. Delegation can start with small steps or tasks. For example, you could consider delegating your social media posts and automations, delegating the building of workflows and software processes that you are not an expert in or opting to partner with aligned affiliates to increase lead generation versus marathon networking.

When you are able to delegate you are truly shifting from a business manager to a business owner. You are allowing yourself to take a step back, breathe, focus on the big picture and hold your delegates accountable. What tasks can you delegate today to avoid approaching the danger-zone of burnout?

  1. Focus on Health vs Wealth

Photo: www.pexel.com

Don’t be like the famous artistes whose music and memorabilia became million dollar items after they die. While your heirs may benefit, nothing will replace your presence. Buddha’s great words reminds us “To keep the body in good health is a duty… otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.” As entrepreneurs creating a lifestyle that allows us to focus, be present and include self-care is critical to business continuity and to service our clients. We are reminded by Reba McEntire that “All the money in the world can’t buy you back good health.” Unlike our wealth that we can potentially recover, our health once gone will never return to where it was. In fact, the healthier we are the more vibrant, productive, efficient and yes, wealthier we can become.

To create wealth, you need your health. What changes can you make today to increase your focus on your health?

The entrepreneur lifestyle is often glorified with pictures of people on a beach, working from luxurious offices and enjoying a vibrant and blissful social life. No glimmer or hint of burnout anywhere. The truth of entrepreneurship doesn’t have to be far from that, depending on the ideal lifestyle you envision and create for yourself. You can start by designing a lifestyle that creates blend versus balance, prioritizes delegation before reaching your danger zone and focuses on maintaining your health to create wealth.

 

 

Aldeen Simmonds-Thorpe featuring Alison Hemmings

Chief HR Transformation Officer and Coach at Aldeen Simmonds-Thorpe Consulting

Aldeen Simmonds-Thorpe is a HR Transformation Strategist, Speaker and Coach helping professionals and businesses to navigate and solve complex business and people problems enabling them to adapt, compete and thrive.  She is a trusted Advisor and Coach to entrepreneurs and business owners helping them build sustainable businesses through community.

Alison Hemmings – Hemmings Consulting

Alison Hemmings is a heart-centered Career Coach, former Headhunter and founder of the ‘Happy Work Project’ helping professionals find and land their ideal jobs while creating a work-life blend that creates true happiness.

LinkedIn (Alison Hemmings): https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisonhemmings/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aldeen-simmonds-thorpe/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/aldeen_sim

Website: https://www.aldeenst.com/

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Written by Dwania Peele · Categorized: Aldeen Simmonds-Thorpe · Tagged: burnout proof lifestyle, Entrepreneurs, lifestyle for entrepreneurs

Jun 04 2019

3 Ways Clarity Improves Your Cash Flow

Photo credit: www.pexel.com

Are you generating the cash flow you want in your business? If you are not generating the revenue you want, consider these words from Steve Maraboli, “A lack of clarity could put the brakes on any journey to success.” Is your clarity helping or hindering your business? Imagine sitting in a room with the best coaches and consultants to focus on your business’ social media, team, operations and customer experience. When they ask you what they need to do more or less of to generate cash flow, are you clear on what you would want to do next? Clarity contributes more to cash flow than any strategy, process or operation ever can. Why? Without clarity we become unclear on what we want to achieve, who to target and what strategies, processes or operations to use to help us achieve our goal. Did a lightbulb just go off for you? I hope so. Here are three ways that clarity can increase your cash flow.

⦁ Clarity Lies in Being Specific

Photo credit: www.pexel.com

Have you been wondering why customer acquisition is so hard? Why your social media and your copious amounts of business books, magazines and articles and networking sessions have not yielded much success? Truth is you are probably unclear of three things:
⦁ Who you are as a person and business – what makes you different, unique and attractive?
⦁ Who you serve – who are your ideal clients and why?
⦁ What results your clients experience – what results or solutions do your clients walk away with or experience?
When we become specific on who you are as a company, who you serve and the results your clients experience, you will be better equipped to communicate, connect and close. When we close, we make money. In a market place where products and service can be ‘vanilla’ or lack differentiation, let your company, product, service and solutions stand out by being clear about how you are unique, who needs your services or products and the results you consistently deliver to your clients.

⦁ Clarity Enhances Focus

Photo credit: www.pexel.com

As a business owner your schedule can become your master. Everything is important. Everything requires your immediate or scheduled attention. But if you step back, take a look at all your activities – in a day, in a week, in a month, how many of them can you easily draw a line to our bottom line? How many of your daily, weekly and monthly activities are revenue-generating activities? 50%? 25%? 10%? Perhaps none? When you are focused on your business’ values and purpose, it helps you categorize, schedule and complete tasks that advance your business’ purpose. If your business is not generating revenue and you are not concerned about generating money, perhaps you should rethink if you are really running a business or an expensive hobby. Being honest about what your business needs to grow is half the battle. Staying focused and committed to doing the required revenue-generating activities to creating and sustaining cash flow.

⦁ Investment and ROI

Photo Credit: www.pexel.com

What does clarity have to do with investment and ROI? Let’s take a look. We have covered being clear and specific in who you are, who you serve and the results your clients get. Then we talked about your clarity of focus to ensure that you are doing revenue generating activities that keeps your businesses fed. Investment and Return on Investment (ROI) is your clarity on the value of your solutions to your client’s problems so their investment (price) to acquire your products and services generates a ROI.

How many times have you heard people question the price of a product or service? How many times have you wondered are you charging enough? Or perhaps if you are charging too much? When you have clarity on your client’s challenges and the results your solutions realize, they are clearer on how an investment in your business realizes an ROI. When they are clear on that, you are able to move from a conversation on price, to a conversation on value. Your clarity on the benefits to your client results in more cash flow for you.

We are told, taught and convinced that cash is king. Without being specific, focused and a clear on the investment and ROI for your clients, it can be very difficult to generate cash and maintain cash flow. Clarity on all three can help you identify, create and maintain cash flow. How can greater clarity create an immediate positive impact on your cash flow? What non-revenue-generating activities will you start removing from your schedule to give way for activities that directly impact your cash flow?

 

Aldeen Simmonds-Thorpe
Chief HR Transformation Officer and Coach at Aldeen Simmonds-Thorpe Consulting

Aldeen Simmonds-Thorpe is a HR Transformation Strategist, Speaker and Coach helping professionals and businesses to navigate and solve complex business and people problems enabling them to adapt, compete and thrive. She is a trusted Advisor and Coach to entrepreneurs and business owners helping them build sustainable businesses through community.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aldeen-simmonds-thorpe/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/aldeen_sim
Website: https://www.aldeenst.com/

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Written by Dwania Peele · Categorized: Aldeen Simmonds-Thorpe · Tagged: cash flow, clarity, improve your cash flow

May 04 2019

Using Effective Feedback To Get What You Need From Your Business Partners.

Photo Credit: Pexel.com

Feedback is often the elusive ingredient to closing many business communication loops. How many of us, as business owners, really provide effective communication? Carolyn Edgecomb in her recent article The Power and Importance of Negative Feedback for Employees shares that 92 % of professionals polled say all feedback helps. As a business owner, gathering feedback from our clients is essential to us providing the best support, service and products. In turn, we should also ensure that our business partners are able to benefit from the same insights and information through our own timely, effective and continuous feedback.

  

Why feedback?

Photo Credit: Pexel.com

Feedback is critical and essential to any relationship, especially in business, to be successful. Feedback provides three important benefits that are critical to getting what you need from your business partners that almost no other method provides. As Bill Gates puts it “We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.”

First, feedback creates productive dialogue. Without feedback there would be assumptions and potential miscommunications that could be costly. Providing your business partners with information, responses and following up, helps reduce the costs associated with rework, deadline extensions and potentially a lost customer…or two.

Secondly, feedback demonstrates a commitment to the relationship and builds trust. It is often said that people only complain when they care. While feedback can be negative, constructive and positive, that additional step to share indicates there is a level of interest and commitment in and to the relationship.

Thirdly, feedback confirms the level of clarity. Have you ever been in a meeting that you thought you clearly explained and laid out information or expectations? Imagine having three out of five members present providing feedback to you that your presentation was unclear. Without that feedback you would have thought everyone left with an understanding of their role, responsibilities and expectations. Feedback clarifies what we thought and confirms what we did.

 

What is effective feedback?

Photo Credit: Pinterest-Kevin Watson

 

Robert Allen believes “There is no failure. Only feedback.”  With that belief, providing and receiving timely, ongoing feedback ensures that we are always serving our business partners in a mutually beneficial way. DX Learning Solutions shares a feedback model that I believe works well to truly provide effective feedback. They describe four components that all revolve around being specific and objective, two components that make the difference between constructive feedback and criticism.

The DX model encourages one to:

  • Describe the situation using a when and where. Being specific is terrific. It also enhances the ability to recall and relate to a specific incident or timeline.
  • Describe the exact behavior or situation. In business it is easy to generalize. Providing timely and continuous feedback helps ensure specific situations and behaviors are captured, documented, and shared in detail when providing feedback.
  • Describing the impact. As we work with our business partners, it is important to communicate the impact of actions and reactions in an objective way. Vague descriptions of loss and inconvenience will negate the purpose and intent of effective feedback.
  • Describe alternatives that would have served you better. Not only is sharing the specific situation and impact important, providing ways that you would have preferred to have the situation be handles or resolved can be quite helpful for the receiver.

 

Using Feedback

Photo Credit: Pexel.com

 

Does providing feedback come naturally to you? It should.  Believe it or not, we provide feedback every day. The true question is are you providing effective feedback? Through our actions, communication, or lack thereof, we are providing feedback. Are we being intentional about the feedback we provide? Are our business partners benefitting from continuous and timely feedback? Is feedback only provided when it is negative?

Our businesses rely heavily on our business partners, community, or eco-system that we create to support it. By providing our business partners with effective feedback that provides specifics, communicates impact and offers alternatives, we are helping them, help us to succeed. How will you use effective feedback to improve your business relationships?

 

Aldeen Simmonds-Thorpe

Chief HR Transformation Officer and Coach at Aldeen Simmonds-Thorpe Consulting

Aldeen Simmonds-Thorpe is a HR Transformation Strategist, Speaker and Coach helping businesses solve problems and navigate human resource challenges resulting in risk mitigation, more efficient processes and build stronger and more diverse and inclusive teams. She is a trusted Advisor and Coach to entrepreneurs helping them build sustainable businesses through community.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aldeen-simmonds-thorpe/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/aldeen_sim

Website: https://www.aldeenst.com/

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Written by Dwania Peele · Categorized: Aldeen Simmonds-Thorpe · Tagged: effective feedback, feedback, why feedback is important

Apr 04 2019

3 Signs It Is Time To Hire Your First Employee

Photo credit: www.pexel.com

The life of an entrepreneur is exciting, gratifying, and yes, it can also be exhausting. You tirelessly ensure every client and task you take is done to perfection, turning your passion into a profitable and rewarding business.

The paradise can be short-lived when you find yourself having to turn away work. Yes! You have to say no to a new client or an existing one, despite your long hours in the office or on-site. You might start thinking you are going to need an extra pair of hands. These are all signs that it might be time to hire your first employee.

For many entrepreneurs, several situations and activities make it clear that it’s time to hire. Your business may be ready when:

You are turning away work.

Photo credit: www.pexel.com

Business is going to plan, or better than planned. You are so busy with business that you have to schedule months ahead. But that is not enough, your customers want more of you now; and new ones don’t want to wait until your next available meeting date in August, when it’s only April. For many small businesses, turning away work is gut-wrenching and now you are doing it. You are turning away work; it may be time to hire your first employee.

 

Your extended, extra overtime is not enough.

Photo credit: www.pexel.com

The rigorous 16-hour day routines have often been a badge of honor for entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, as business owners soon find out, extended days, little sleep and fluctuating productivity is not the perfect combination for success. This is a fast track to burnout, low productivity, frustration and potentially lost customers. When you are still behind, despite your best combination of passion and efficiency, it might be time to hire your first employee.

 

You are seeing the value of extra hands.

Photo credit: www.pexel.com

Cost, benefits and ROI are not just buzz words for an entrepreneur. They are key elements that result in either success or failure. Spending money in the wrong areas and at the wrong time can be the difference between staying open for another month, capitalizing on an opportunity and losing everything. When an extra pair of hands is able to pay for itself right away, it may be time to hire your first employee.

The decision to hire your first employee is never clear cut or easy. There are so many more factors to consider, but so many benefits to be gained as well. Having an additional person(s) can take your business to the next level with a greater capability to service your customers while giving you an opportunity to leverage your time and expertise for greater growth. Listen to your business and watch for the signs that let you know it’s time to hire your first employee.

Aldeen Simmonds-Thorpe

Chief HR Transformation Officer and Coach at Aldeen Simmonds-Thorpe Consulting

Aldeen Simmonds-Thorpe is a HR Transformation Strategist, Speaker and Coach helping businesses solve problems and navigate human resource challenges resulting in risk mitigation, more efficient processes and build stronger and more diverse and inclusive teams. She is a trusted Advisor and Coach to entrepreneurs helping them build sustainable businesses through community.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aldeen-simmonds-thorpe/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/aldeen_sim

Website: https://www.aldeenst.com/

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Written by Dwania Peele · Categorized: Aldeen Simmonds-Thorpe · Tagged: hiring your first employee, HR, time to hire

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