How Moving Affects Your Business

Kathleen Shannon 0:02
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Kathleen Shannon 0:52
So I have some big news.

Emily Thompson 0:55
Do you? What is it?

Kathleen Shannon 0:58
I moved?

Emily Thompson 0:59
Yay.

Kathleen Shannon 1:00
I've only been talking about it for a year or two or 35.

Emily Thompson 1:07
Better late than never. I want to hear all about it.

Kathleen Shannon 1:10
Okay, so I moved to the like metro area of Detroit. Jeremy, my husband got a job a dream job as a machine learning and self driving car engineer. Look at him go. Yeah. So we went to San Francisco. Let me think this would have been at the beginning of December in 2017. So the end of last year. And a day after we got back, he flew to Detroit for an interview. And he got a job offer that week. So basically over what was supposed to be our holiday break. I was wrapping up some loose ends, even not being bossed a little bit and then over at braid creative and then just moving our family across the country which Emily you have experienced with. And after doing this, I cannot believe that you also put in a 40 day road trip with her. That's just insane. Right. All right. And that almost broke me. And I'm sorry, I didn't feel more sorry for you then I should have been like, I don't know. showering at night. Yeah, I guess I should have been Lighting a candle for you at night. So anyway, so then we ended up actually moving to Detroit, at the very, very beginning of the year. So we bought a Subaru Outback, because that's what you do whenever you live in a place that has snow. Yeah. And we drove up here with Fox and our two cats and a bin full of plants. And a couple of blow up mattresses that we can have a place to sleep before stuff got here. And I'm still in the process of unpacking and settling in, but we're here.

Emily Thompson 2:56
Congratulations, I remember beginning of last year beginning of 2017, you were like this year, I'm moving. And it happened. You waited literally to like the last day. But it totally happened. And I'm so excited for you to to experience and make the most of such a huge transition.

Kathleen Shannon 3:19
I've been asked a lot if I'm nervous or scared or excited. I think that a lot of people who know me know how close I am with my family. I lived across the street from my sister, we co own breed creative together. My mom and dad would pick Fox up every Friday night from daycare, and he would spend the night with them. So I had to have one night of uninterrupted sleep because guess what my four year old still doesn't sleep through the night. Um, anyway, I had all my support system, all my best friends. I mean, my creative community, you realize how much you have like my gym, I that's one of the things I didn't realize was so important to me was my gym and my gym buddies. And anyway, so all of those things, and we picked it all up and moved across the country. How's it feeling? You know, it's feeling really good in my heart and bones. I've always believed myself to be very resilient and adaptable. I think that you know, between starting a job and starting my own job braid creative like going from working a day job to doing that. Things like I've been married and divorced before I've you know, I've gone through some big life changes that have taught me already that human beings can be very adaptable and can be very resilient if you just allow yourself to be so I went into the process feeling really confident. And I'm still feeling really good. I only almost cried once and that was dropping Fox off at his new school was kind of tricky. Just because like you know, I'm a mama and I can't help but worry for him being the new guy and at the same time I was dropping Jeremy off at his new job and worrying about him being the new guy there as well. And I think that we were all feeling the effects of not having Wi Fi for six days or internet connection like that was that took its biggest hole on us.

Emily Thompson 5:15
I love it, it was the hardest part No, wifi.

Kathleen Shannon 5:19
But also like, you know, I've been so remote with my business, even with braid creative, we have that physical office space now, which we still have, and nothing has changed there, nothing has changed with being boss, the fact that my life is so online, and that my work is something that I can do from anywhere, has really helped me stay really stable in my routine and structure. Even though we took a month off, and the move was happening within all of that I was really looking forward to getting back to work. And I felt the same way. You know, even after having a kiddo like that was another big life change. Then I've said this before, but work saved my life in the middle of kind of a pretty dark time of sleep deprivation and maybe a little bit of postpartum depression and anxiety. I say a little bit, probably a lot. And it was one of those things that brought me like routine and structure. So now it's really just about figuring out like, how life is going to be but so far, like, all my things are in my new house. So it kind of feels the same, I guess. Yeah, I'm really excited. And it's really beautiful. They're like trees, and like evergreens with snow on them. And windy roads. It's I mean, it's literally with my eyeballs, beautiful.

Emily Thompson 6:33
Good. The opposite of Oklahoma. And not like the beautiful part, but like trees and windy roads. Um, I love that you have done this because it was one of those things where even I was meeting people who were listening to being Boston, they were asking me if you had moved yet. And I'd be like, guys, like I can't even talk about this anymore.

Kathleen Shannon 6:56
Like I can't even talk about with Kathleen anymore. I'm sick of hearing about it.

Emily Thompson 7:00
So I'm so glad it finally happened and that you've experienced this thing, because I was just telling David last night, we're at a point in our life where we moved here two and a half years ago. And we've moved every two and a half years since we left home for college. And that's just it's been the cycle that we've done. And either moving houses or moving states, we've done it a couple of times. And when and and I say this because we're starting to get itchy, like two and a half ends.

Kathleen Shannon 7:29
I also can't believe that it's been two and a half years, it feels like it was a year and a half years

Emily Thompson 7:34
has been two and a half years since we moved here, we're starting to get the itch. And we don't need to get the itch. Like we love our house. We love where we are all these things. But what I was talking to David about this last night, what I realized is what I'm getting the itch for is that like life change that like up level that comes from leaving an old house to go to a new house, or whatever it may be, or leaving one job to go to another or whatever it may be. And not even so much job because my work also has always been that like, stable piece that allowed me to move around with relative ease. But there's something to be said about making that huge life transition. And, and even if you're moving into a smaller house or whatever, there is like an up leveling of your life that more or less is happening. I've craving that apparently a little bit. So is David. And you have just embarked on the largest one you've ever done, which is exciting.

Kathleen Shannon 8:29
And you know, we were talking about our intentions in an earlier episode earlier earlier. minisode. And, you know, yours was peace. And I think that that's one of those things like letting go of control. That's one of those things that I've had to do. In the process of this move. That has been such a good, I don't know, test for me or challenge, but it hasn't been entirely challenging. So I've been really excited about that aspect of it. And I feel like I mean, you guys, I've only been here for a week as of recording this. So who knows, maybe in a couple of weeks, like or Friday night rolls around, and my mom isn't picking up Foxy from daycare. And I don't know maybe like, it'll start to settle in like, Whoa, I miss my people

Emily Thompson 9:16
by starting out strong.

Kathleen Shannon 9:19
Yeah, just starting out strong. And I'm also kind of holding myself diligent to remaining strong through it, or if I do cry to let myself feel those feelings and then move on. But I am really excited about living closer to Liz who's one of my favorite people. And she's also the creative director over at braid creative. So I'm just two hours from her and I feel like it's kind of serendipity that we wound up in the same state together, which is Michigan. I know it feels a little bit random and a little bit a lot awesome. So I'm really excited to be close to her but I'm trying to think of like, what should change about my life Like, what could I do differently? And so I'm wondering if I need to have different goals for Michigan, like I probably got a little lazy in Oklahoma City about connecting with my creative community because it's like I had my people, those were the only people I was really making the effort to connect with. So do I need to try and find a creative community here? Or should I just kind of hunker down and really focus on my family? Because that sounds really appealing right now to should I start blogging again, that's something that I even thought I was gonna do last year, but never really did I mean, or do I start like incorporating hikes into my workout routines now that I have easier access to nature? Like, what, what looks different? And so maybe this is just a question for, you know, you and our listeners is like, what, what advice would you have whenever it comes to having this opportunity to recreate who I am? And maybe some of my habits and routines, or even some mindset stuff has already shifted for me? So I don't know, do you have any advice around that?

Emily Thompson 11:03
I think my biggest one is to go to the being boss website, Kathleen and download the ideal day worksheet. Or just pull it up in your Dropbox, because you can do that quite easily. I mean, you really are in a place in your life, where you get to completely redefine everything, because you have none of those normal structures in place that have helped you define things. So you can get so dreamy about everything

Kathleen Shannon 11:26
at the same time. Like I'm such a structured person that a lot of my routines I'm now relying on like we talk a lot about and even in the being boss book, we talk a lot about how our habits and routines allow us to make shape shifts and changes and kind of go on autopilot where we're not completely discombobulated. So having kind of my work routines and habits in place, and even this week, I'm coming down with a little bit of cold. But before I had my cold, I made it a priority to hit the gym in the morning, like to kind of do some of the same things to make my coffee in the morning. Some of my routines are so solid in place, that I think they're helping me stay resilient through a move. And I think, you know, my biggest change might end up being on the weekends, because I spent every weekend with my families. And then, you know, Jeremy would take Fox to go see his mom and grandma and I would stay home and just kind of Netflix. And so I think that that's probably going to be the biggest shift. And I haven't really experienced a full weekend that hasn't just been spent unpacking. So I think that might be where some of the biggest shifts happen with my little three, just get dreaming early. I'm gonna get dreamy with that.

Emily Thompson 12:35
I do love that you are finding comfort in your routines and the you are able to carry those over. But I think I also might challenge you a little bit there. Like, make yourself a little more uncomfortable. Maybe not with your coffee. God knows you need that. And definitely like in your workout being so important, but maybe there are other areas in your life where you can shift things around and see what happens. Think outside the box.

Kathleen Shannon 13:02
I know. Well one thing that I found is that Fox's daycare is closer to Jeremy's work so he's doing like the drop off and pickup now which actually gives me probably about 45 minutes to an hour extra of my day not doing that myself, love them and then also not commuting. I have a coffee shop right around the corner from me so I'll be able to work from there. So I think that there are like little things that won't be uncomfortable necessarily, but actually I've been able to make more space in my day a little bit. So who knows? Just play who knows.

Emily Thompson 13:36
I'm glad you finally did it Kathleen. Congratulations.

Kathleen Shannon 13:39
Thank you and then other than that, like nothing is changing my involvement with being bosses the same my involvement with braid creative as the same if not expanding a little bit. I'm just you know, as our businesses shift and grow in different ways. I got myself a Delta skymiles card and starting to rack up those points.

Emily Thompson 13:59
Hell yes. All day,

Kathleen Shannon 14:02
all day. Good.

Caitlin Brehm 14:04
So I haven't been in this yet. So I don't know if it's awkward for me to ask this or you just want to like discuss.

Kathleen Shannon 14:11
Just say Caitlin

Emily Thompson 14:12
here. So So everyone Caitlin's been here the entire time and now has something to ask. Yeah.

Caitlin Brehm 14:19
Hi, everyone. So now that Emily, you are two and a half years removed from moving your life across the country. And Kathleen You are a week? What advice would you have for bosses out there who are about to move physically or go through one of these major up level life changes to keep their business in check. During all of that,

Kathleen Shannon 14:44
I mean Emily probably has some practical and actionable tactics for like, you know, setting up autoresponders on your email or scheduling space. But mine is again probably with that mindset of just knowing like trusting yourself that you can handle And that's one of like, that's probably been my mantra on repeat I always think that it begins with mindset and just trusting that you can handle it from you know adding a baby to your family to going through a divorce to getting married to moving across the country like you trust that you can handle it.

Emily Thompson 15:18
Yeah, and mine really is putting up that email autoresponder and blocking it off in your calendar which I didn't do I should have put up that email auto it was the holidays like you basically you had it was holidays I think one of another one of mine would be scheduling a little more time afterwards then you probably think you need to really get settled in I mean, I feel like nothing is more stressful than having a house full of boxes but you're you have to get back to your inbox immediately or whatever it may be just a little more space than you initially think you need to go ahead and give yourself that because worst case scenario you still have boxes to unpack or you're able to get back to work earlier.

Kathleen Shannon 16:01
Yeah, there's been some serious life hustle going on over here where I'm like unpacking in between meetings and late into the evening and it's the kind of hustle that you know, would be exhausting if it was going on forever but just reminding myself like okay just like a really crunch deadline like this is important to me to get unpacked so I'm gonna hustle it out.

Kathleen Shannon 16:25
This minisode was brought to you by Twenty20 check them out at twenty20.com/beingboss, that's t w e n t y 20 as in the number.com slash being boss.

Emily Thompson 16:39
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