Take a Chill Pill

Emily Thompson 0:02
bosses we know the struggles of shipping it can be complex with the uncertainty over costs and deciding which carrier to use plus tracking your packages. Things at best can get confusing. But now there's a better way to ship send pro online by Pitney Bowes. With sin pro online, it's easy to save time and money no matter what you send from letters and packages to overnights and flats, and you'll always get the rate that's best for you. You can use send pro online to easily compare USPS and other shipping options all in one online tool. You can use them to print shipping labels and stamps on your own printer, and to track all of your shipments and get email notifications when they've arrived. You send pro online for your business for only 1499 per month, and our listeners can get a free 30 day trial when you visit PB com slash boss. You will also receive a free 10 pound scale to help you weigh your packages and accurately calculate the cost of shipping so you'll never overpay. Get Your FREE scale and 30 day free trial now@pb.com slash boss. Hello and welcome to being boss. This minisode is all about the mindset of a creative entrepreneur and why we think you should try to take a chill pill.

Caitlin Brehm 1:30
Alright bosses Caitlin Brehm here if you don't know me already, I work behind the scenes here at being boss with Emily and Kathleen, helping them with All Things editorial calendar, content, and SEO. I know that you've all been to our website being boss club. But if you haven't noticed, we've got all of our content broken down into three main categories. We have boss habits, Boss life, and boss mindset. And Emily and Kathleen, I know that you guys have talked about previously that you're working on writing your book. And these are three of the main sort of sections of the book as well. But behind the scenes here in some of our conversations amongst the being boss team. And then also in the clubhouse, I keep seeing boss mindset especially come up over and over again. And the struggle with kind of maintaining that boss mindset. And even recently, Kathleen, you jumped into the being boss clubhouse slack group. And you asked the bosses there to share an intention for that week. And, you know, we had a couple bosses set their intention on you know, finalizing edits for a project or a sales page or responding to emails. But I noticed that the majority of them had intentions that had to do with mindset. So remembering that they do have enough time in the day to complete everything, or really concentrating on focusing up and staying on track, or just not getting so wound up and really placing an intention to keep a relaxed mindset. So since mindset is one of these three main components of what it means to be a boss, what do you think it is about creative entrepreneurs that make us get so in our head about everything? And how is it that we can take a chill pill for lack of a better word? What do you think?

Emily Thompson 3:33
I think one of the reasons why we get so in our heads about all of the things that we have to do is because we're the only person we have to talk to about all the things we have to do is solopreneurs like everything comes from our own heads, and then we do the thing and then whatever comes from it just it just cycles back into it. Like all the feedback is ours, all the consequences is ours, all of the results and the the everything, it just comes back to us. And so I think this creates like a fun, fun cycle in ourselves where we just sort of process everything a little too much. We're super in our head and a little little out of practice of just like shutting it up and making it do. So whenever I think about everything about how you can tackle this, I think it's finding a business bestie like having someone to be your sounding board for all the feedback and results and, and metrics or ideas or whatever it is that you're wanting to create having someone to talk about it with. Whether that be like a business bestie or maybe someone local to you or someone who gets what you do is really important. But also, I think just sort of practicing not like shutting it down and just doing the work. Whenever I sit down at my desk during the day, I think about shit other than what it is that I'm doing. I have a task list. I have my windows open. I have my keyboard in one hand and my little, my little mouse pencil on the other. And I'm going at it.

Kathleen Shannon 5:11
Wait, use a mouse pencil.

Emily Thompson 5:14
I do use it. Look, you know this, I know that I have a bamboo pad trackpad with a pencil and this is my mouse.

Kathleen Shannon 5:23
Wait, what? Right? I What did I not know this?

Emily Thompson 5:30
I don't know, this is this is how I mouse things around how to design things and make things beautiful. You

Kathleen Shannon 5:36
design things with the lip, but you're not drawing things. No,

Emily Thompson 5:40
but I can make beautiful squares.

Kathleen Shannon 5:42
what?

Emily Thompson 5:46
Right,

Kathleen Shannon 5:47
my mind is blown right now.

Emily Thompson 5:48
Yeah. So it's worked really great. It doesn't it make keeps my carpal tunnel from acting up. Super legit, like this. Versus like that, right? Like, I can't even use a regular mouse anymore. It's,

Kathleen Shannon 6:03
I just use the trackpad on my computer. I

Emily Thompson 6:05
can't do that either. It hurts my fingertips. So good. But yes, I have my keyboard and one, my mouse pencil on the other. And I'm just getting to work. And I think that whenever we give our selves this time and space to like overthink things, it's when we get into that nasty spiral of questioning everything that we do, and where you know, when we have to agree these, you know, weekly intentions to not do the work, but really do the mindset work to do the work. That's when you know, you're in a place where you just need to do the work. But do the mindset work so you can do the work, and then get to work? You're welcome. What about you, Kathleen?

Kathleen Shannon 6:54
Um, I think that the processing too much from the research talking about that it got me thinking about a time whenever I've needed to take a chill pill recently, and that is in working on our book. So this is a huge project that we're working on. I've heard all these stories about how working on a book is just the worst thing ever, and that it will kill you. And so I have all these outside expectations, or I've painted a picture of what it looks like to work on a book plus the actual task at hand. And I know that I need to take a chill pill whenever I start becoming way too overwhelmed by all of it. So more recently, I thought, okay, all I need to do is open the intro summary and work on that, all I need to do is open the InDesign file and lay out our about pages in our proposal. And whenever I can break it down to the task at hand, it really makes me realize that it's not as big of a deal as I'm making it out to be in my head. So I think that that's the easiest way to take a chill pill, aside from smoking a joint is just taking your big goal and chunking it out into step by step actions. And Emily, you and I both live and die by our Asana task list and our project management tools that we use. At any given point, whenever I feel like I don't know what it is that I'm supposed to be doing. I go to Asana and I look at my task list. And I just do the next thing. So that really helps me keep myself in check. It helps me keep myself working toward my goals without being overwhelmed by the end goal, because I've got some big ones. And, and I just do the work. Like you said, Emily. Another tool that I really love using whenever I start to get into an anxiety loop is a tool from Brene Brown's rising strong, where whenever you start freaking out, you start off by saying the story I'm telling myself is blank. So whenever I was getting in a tizzy about writing this book, the story I'm telling myself is that writing a book is really hard. And that's how I started to get really stressed out. So instead, once once I can objectively see that the story I was telling myself is that this is hard, I can start to really deconstruct that thought and ask Okay, in what ways is this hard? In what ways is this easy? How could the opposite be true? In what ways? Am I making this harder than it could be? In what ways Could I make this easier? So I just start getting really curious around the story that I'm telling myself to really just chill out about it. So I hope that that helps you guys. But if not have a glass of wine

Emily Thompson 9:37
for the day, go take a nap. Right? You got this? Hey there bosses. One of my favorite things about running an online business is being able to automate so much of my business. I love the tools that allow me to work smarter, not harder. One such tool that I use consistently In my business is ConvertKit, using them to automatically educate and sell to my new subscribers without me having to lift a finger. Kathleen and I are big fans of drip content, the sequence of emails that automatically goes out to subscribers when they join our list. These emails can introduce new subscribers to your brand and mission. Let them know what they can expect from your emails, fill them in on your products and services, and more through a sequence of a few pre written and scheduled emails. to employ this genius tactic for our businesses, we use ConvertKit to schedule these emails and track the effectiveness of them all in one place. So we have control over the content that gets sent out and can make smart decisions when it comes time to check in on refreshing that content. If you're heavy on content generation in your online business, we recommend you check out ConvertKit they totally helped us kick our email marketing of a very boss notch. Try ConvertKit for free for 30 days go to ConvertKit.com/beingboss to learn more. Did you like this minisode Be sure to check us out on our website at beingboss.club. There you can find more from being boss including our full episodes minisodes and blog posts. And while you're there, be sure to sign up for our mailing list so that you can get access to behind the scenes and exclusive content from Kathleen and myself to help you be more boss in your work and life. Do the work be boss