This past week was my last week back home. After my dad’s sudden death, I’ve spent almost a month with my family. I was as excited to go back to work and see my friends as I was terrified to leave my mum alone.
During the crisis period – waking up one morning with shocking news about my dad passing away, jumping on the first flight, dealing with funeral and other unpleasant things and trying to make sure that my business keeps going without my presence for a few weeks – I’ve learnt a few interesting lessons:
Get organised soon!
I had planned to map out processes and create better systems for my business in January. If I did this a few weeks earlier, I might have been in a much better place to be dealing with this situation. As it was, it was pure chaos.
I’m really grateful that I have an incredible business partner, who’s been working alongside me for almost a year now and knows the majority of my business, but there are still lots of hows and whys that are only in my head.
Some people will surprise you
Only in times of emergency can we really peek behind people’s facades and see their true face. I was touched by the amount of love and support that I received from all my business buddies, mentors, colleagues, clients and everyone in my professional network.
It’s been interesting to see who were the first people to get uncomfortable about my absence and started raising lots of questions about my return, future plans, their services and invoices. The biggest surprise was that it came from people I wouldn’t have ever guessed!
Personal space matters!
Even though I can work remotely (and my mum was going to work as usual most of the time so I was going with her to the office), I’ve realised how important it is to have a working environment that really suits your needs. I’m truly lucky to have my base at CambridgeSpace, where people know my routine, they can see when I need some quiet time to concentrate and when it’s okay to chat. We pay attention to one and another and respect each other’s needs.
Even though I’ve been working during the last couple of weeks, I’ve realised how unfocused and unproductive I am. I was procrastinating a lot and avoiding big and important tasks a lot, I struggled finishing tasks (or sometimes even my own thoughts). To run a successful business you need to put yourself in the right position to win and your office environment is one of the key factors.
I love my work
Over the past few weeks, I’ve also learnt how passionate (sometimes even stubborn) I am about social media and helping small business owners leverage the power of social media marketing. I spend lots of time looking at what other people are doing to gain some inspiration for my new blog posts, meetups and potentially online courses. I’ve read and watched some truly inspiring pieces of content.
But on the other hand, I’ve seen way too much misleading information and tips from so-called ‘social media gurus’. That made me angry and upset at the same time, but mostly it made me work even harder to cut through the noise with my message.
I still cringe sometimes when I’m being called a social media expert as I know how much more there is to be learnt. With more and more experience and lovely feedback from my clients, I’m slowly building my confidence in myself. That also helps me with being able to stand up for what I believe is the right thing to do and I’m not afraid to stand up and raise my voice if I disagree.
Podcast Corner
I’ve spent more time listening to podcasts recently (partially because I found it hard to concentrate for longer periods of time to read/listen to books).
Episode 114 of the Mind Your Business Podcast on How To Reprogram Your Subconscious Mind For Automatic And Lasting High Performance
In this episode, I learnt the 6 words that will change your life. You need to listen to the episode to find the answer, as I can’t simplify and translate the message without messing it up (don’t worry, it’s in the first section).
My biggest takeaway from listening to the episode is: You are where your attention is, be as if it already is.
I’ve always been interested in psychology and figuring out how the brain works, but lately, I’ve really got curious about the power of our minds and visualisation. I’ve even started watching some NLP courses and exploring different meditation techniques more. It’s still pretty much work in progress and I wish I had more time (and patience) for this.
How about you, do you believe in the power of visualisation? I’d love to hear your views on different techniques of neurological programming.
