You're listening to the life friendly business podcast. I'm your host, Erin Thomas Wong, business mentor and coach, author and founder of the cocoon VIP membership, empowering women around the world to build businesses on their terms. If you want to grow and scale, a business that works in harmony with your family and your life, this podcast is for you.
Hello, this is Erin, and welcome to the final episode of season one of the life friendly business podcasts. I've really enjoyed creating these episodes for you and I look forward to continuing in the new year. I'd really love to hear from you if you've been enjoying the podcast so far, because that's the one thing about podcasting is that you don't get the instant feedback like you do when you do a Facebook Live or an Instagram Live. So it really is wonderful to receive messages from you on email or via social when you've been listening to the episode. So I'd love to get feedback from you on what you would like to hear more of you can contact me at [email protected] or find me on social @lifefriendlybiz.
So during this first season of the podcast, I've talked a lot about the challenges surrounding running your business on limited time around other commitments around family life, and trying to do this without burning yourself out. We've covered the mindset Gremlins that stop you from pushing yourself out there and getting the success that you deserve. We've also had some fantastic guests who've shared with us their own experiences of building a life friendly business. They shared the mistakes they've made and the decisions that they've taken to keep their business life friendly.
We've had Laura Robinson talking about the fact that she had no choice but to carve her own path due to ill health and homeschooling her children. We've spoken to Louise Brogan who has created a six figure online business that's flexible around her three children. Carly Rose who is an online business manager supporting other small business owners, and is now helping other women to set up their own flexible business. We spoke to Awena who shared her deeply personal story of postnatal depression, and how that shaped her business now, Maddie Alexander who's overcome adversity with challenges like postpartum psychosis and an autoimmune disease. And yet she's still scaling her award winning money saving app. We also heard from Rebecca Newenham who's grown a global agency after being inspired by her mother's business while she was growing up, and Viv Allen shared her journey of recovering from divorce and reinventing herself while solo parenting. And finally we spoke to Keri Squibb, a former police constable who now runs to successful eco friendly businesses.
So hopefully, if you haven't listened to those interviews yet, or there's some that you need to catch up on, you're going to have time to do that, while we have this gap in between the two seasons, I am also going to be getting transcripts made of all of the past 25 episodes so that if you prefer to skim read that instead of listen to the podcast, you're able to do that too. And going forward. But today, I really wanted to encourage you to think about whether you're making time to reflect on how things have been.
So I've just kind of done a little bit of a recap on what we've been talking about on the podcast. But now I want to focus on you and the reflection that you might need to take about your business and also your life. So this is very much about creating that CEO time for you to be able to think through a few questions. And it's so easy to overlook this part. But actually, taking time to reflect is absolutely crucial in order to make positive change going forward. And in order to grow your business. You're not going to change anything if you do the same thing over and over again. So we need to be aware of what we've done so far, what has worked, what hasn't worked, why it hasn't worked, so that we can move forward and make changes to that. So before the end of the year, I would love you to carve out a bit of time to have a mini reflection exercise. And I've got five questions that you can use to do that.
So number one, how has your business grown in the last year? Have you launched any new products or services have you taken on any staff or freelancers? What's new, what is new? How is your business grown. And you know, the funny thing about this is it's so easy to feel like, Oh, God, actually, nothing's changed. And that can often be our first response. But when you start thinking about this, and this is why it's such an important exercise, you remember the things that you've done, because actually, you've probably achieved so much in the last 12 months. But because life is so busy, and we have all these other things going on, apart from our businesses, things get lost. And I can tell you that when I was sitting down to plan this episode, and I thought I would share with you a little bit about my own journey in the last 12 months for each of these questions, I completely forgot, but I've launched a podcast this year. And, and, this is, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Like, if we don't take time to reflect, then we're not really giving ourselves the credit that we deserve for the things that we've been doing.
So for me, actually, even though we have had a pandemic, it's actually been a really positive year in terms of my business, I've actually increased my turnover by 31%. And I've been able to match actually exceed my previous full time TV salary on 25 hours or less a week. So that's a huge achievement, especially during a pandemic. So not only have I launched this podcast, but I also rebranded from the mumpreneur collective to life friendly business at the same time. And actually, you know, creating this podcast has made me focus down even more so on what my message truly is. And so it's been a really fantastic exercise for this. And, you know, I mentioned about forgetting that I launched a podcast, when I first sat down to write notes on how my business has grown in the last year, this is something that we talk about in the Evolve mastermind as well, because every week, we say, right, what wins can you celebrate from the previous week? And often people are like, aren't you know what, I haven't really achieved that much. And then I'll say to them, didn't you get a new lead for a client? Or didn't you finally finish that sales page that you've been wanting to do for weeks, and we can forget this stuff. And when you don't have anyone around you who is as invested in your business as you are, it can be really, really lonely because you don't have someone to feed back to you. And that's why being part of a mastermind or having a mentor is so important.
So ask yourself, How has your business grown in the last year? Have you launched any new products? Any services? Have you taken on any staff? Or have you taken on freelancers? So how has your business grown?
Number two, what hasn't worked so well, in your business or life in the last year? So for me, I would say, it's been a really, really good year, as I said, but if I think about the things that haven't worked, so Well, I haven't been able to scale my cocoon membership in the way that I had planned. But it's probably because my focus has been elsewhere, because I've been focused on the Evolve mastermind and launching this podcast, and also on the impact online workshops. So that's okay. So where are, you know, where is my goals for this year, included? spending lots of time working on the cocoon and trying to scale it. Inside the cocoon, there's a huge amount of engagement. And you know, the women are getting value there, and they're loving the community. But in terms of me, increasing my revenue from the cocoon, that hasn't happened, but you know what, I'm okay with that, because I've more than made up for it in the other areas that I've been working on. Also, in terms of life stuff. Well, we've just had COVID. So basically, we've had three weeks, if not four, wipes out from illness, and also looking after my mum who became very ill as well. But the good things that came out of that, in terms of lessons learned are that I have a really good support network. And in terms of my business, I've got Carly, my online business manager, who really held everything together and I knew that you know, content was going out emails were going out even when I was unwell. And I also invested in Laura Robinson, from Worditude. My guru copywriter who had been helping me with like the sales page copy for the mastermind and impact so I had all this support in place. So even though I was very poorly, I was still able to continue running and growing my business. So have a think about what hasn't worked so well for you. And why this year?
Number three, what would you like to do more of next year. And this takes quite a bit of reflection, I think. And because we want to do so much that way, if you're anything like me, you're excited about running your business, and you're excited about the potentials. And there's lots of different things that we can be doing. That's the double edged sword of running your business is that there is always more that you can be doing. And sometimes we have to be quite strict with ourselves to think no, I'm gonna focus down on this one thing or this, you know, these two things. So for me, one thing I've really enjoyed this year is working much more closely with individuals through the mastermind. And through mentoring. And I actually really get a lot from that having that closeness, where I can check in with someone and ask how their business is going. And I know what their plans were. And so I can, you know, check in with them and help them be accountable to those. And so I really enjoyed that. And I definitely want to scale the kind of mastermind model. But also on the flip side of that, I want to be able to utilize a lot of the content that I've already created, and develop a kind of signature online course that people can go through at their own pace that will help them to grow their business. So they're kind of two opposites in a way.
But the other thing that I want to do more of is really keep my mind clear of all the clutter, because I've definitely found this year that I have slowed down, I'm not rushing things. On a daily basis, I've cut down how much I expect of myself to do workwise. And actually, I've earned more money. And my creativity has flowed much better. So things like I love writing really good content posts for social or email, but most of the time, I feel so hassled by everything else going on are so overwhelmed, that I just can't think it through and every now and then I'll have like a lightbulb moment. And it's normally something quite personal that I'm writing about. And those posts go down really well. But actually, when I've taken my foot off the gas a little bit and slowed everything down, I've realized that writing that kind of content becomes much more enjoyable. So definitely keeping my mind clear. So what would you like to do more of next year? That's Question three.
And then Question four, what would you like to do less of? So for me, definitely, I don't want to be doing too much. I want to keep really laser focused on just a few things that I am going to be focusing on. Because of the reasons that I just said, like I know, that's how I work better. And also, I'm really aware of managing my energy. That's something that during the pandemic, it's really taught me when we've kind of been at home and doing less. And so I'm much more aware of my energy throughout the day. So I don't want to take on too much. But that doesn't mean that I don't want to grow my business, I absolutely want to grow my business. And I want to make more money. But I want to do it on my own terms, which is what life any business is all about. And also, you know, what I want to do less of is that whole feeling of should I should be doing this, I should be doing that. Worried about letting people down. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to become like cold, cold blooded. But I think we spend way too much time doing that. So they're the things that I would like to do less of what would you like to do less of?
And finally, the last question, question number five is, what can you be most proud of in the last year? I think for me, it's being aware of the positive impact that I've had on people. And like I said, at the beginning that's why it means so much to me when people reach out and say they've listened to the podcast when people send me testimonials for the cocoon and the Evolve mastermind and the mentoring. You know, that's when I get to really feel that amazing gratitude for the work that I'm able to do with people and, and for me to see what a difference that has made to them. So I'm really, really proud of that. And also, I'm really proud that I have now exceeded my full time TV salary, and I'm really working 25 hours or less a week. I mean, literally, I would say my days I probably do about three to four hours of really productive work on a weekday and then I'm kind of a bit brain dead and need a bit of a nap before the school run, and you know, that feels amazing. I feel like I've balanced my energy really well. And I'm able to work in flow with that in the time that I am most productive. So that's what I'm most proud of. But what are you most proud of?
Please do take that time to reflect because it's so important. So that's it. That is the end of season one of the life friendly business podcast. Thank you so much for listening. I will be back in the new year with Season Two really excited to bring that to you more solo episodes and interviews as well. But I'd love to hear what you would like to hear more of what would be most useful to you. If you've been listening, please do contact me at [email protected] or on social @lifefriendlybiz.
And if you'd like to work with me, if you would like me to help you to create that life friendly business to make some tweaks to the way that you're running your business so that you can do it on your own terms and feel less strung out and less overwhelmed. please do reach out to me. I would love to speak to you. I will see you very soon take care. Does every win feels slightly tinged with guilt. Do you have your best month ever financially in your business, but yet you feel like it's been at the detriment of your health or your family. The success and fulfillment you're looking for can only be enjoyed when your business and home life are balanced in harmony. It's time to stop trading off between life and business. It's time to evolve them both. Join me for our next 12 week, evolve mastermind, where your work towards your next stretch business goal while maintaining the balance across all areas of your life so that when you reach your goal you feel successful, not exhausted behind or neglectful. It's time to take back the power. Find out more about the Evolve mastermind at lifefriendlybusiness.com
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
