Episode 8: Balancing Family & Biz
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Intro: Ready to join a growing segment of the population who works and lives from our stories? We don’t have traditional nine to five jobs and we don’t want them because financial and lifestyle freedom is too important to us. The writing and entrepreneurship community, sharing stories and making bank along the way is our way of life.
Inside each episode, you’ll learn business mindset and writing growth tips, lifestyle hacks and marketing strategies for growing an online writing or lifestyle business from scratch right from the comfort of your home. The podcast is designed to uplift, inspire, and add a little extra presence to your everyday with your host, Susan Kiley, a no BS book coach and strategist, speaker and author. Susan helps people tell their stories by tapping into their bold message, shape words to resonate with their audience and produce a story that has a powerful impact on the world. Welcome to the Writer Insider. Here’s your host, Susan Kiley.
Welcome to today’s show!
Episode 08– Balancing Family & Biz
Shizzle…This Happened!
The other day I was talking with a friend who blindly supports me, has for years.
She told me something that placed an ick feeling within me.
She said, “Susan, you frustrate me. You don’t reliably follow through on what you say you’re going to do.”
I stopped and processed what she was saying. First, learning I’ve disappointed someone cuts to my core. Second, I needed to clarify how I don’t follow through. I follow through in ‘real’ life, in person. When ‘business’ stuff comes up, I drop the ball.
I don’t mean too. I have every good intention of doing what I say I’m going to do, but life gets in the way and I value the present and life over business. My time with my kids are limited, and though I’m trying to build a legacy, I drop the ball.
I stop doing business stuff and instead edit my son’s short story.
I go outside and bomb the ball and my son working on soccer.
I bump and coach my daughter on volleyball or give pointers on being a better cheerleader.
Does that make me a horrible person?
Does that make me a bad business woman?
Does that make me a bad mom?
No. That makes me human.
Shizzle happens and I prioritize life over business—over everyone who follows me, who wants more of what I say, write, and record. For me, my family is and will always be more important than my business or building a legacy. I value my business and building a legacy, but my children…
Balance
Balancing it all can and often feels overwhelming, I completely get that! When you add family, relationships, business and then adding things like YOU time, writing and publishing a book, exercise, etc…SHIZZLE is bound to happen.
I made a goal for 2019 to stick with what I say I’m going to do…and darn it, I continue to not do it. Why?
Because I’m human.
Life happens – kids, relationships, writing, coaching, building a business…the list is endless.
Look, I hate dropping the ball in business.
I hate criticism.
I hate disappointment.
And, I hate the word hate. [laughs]
I try to take criticism, the good criticism and put it to good use.
I know, it’s so difficult to hear something not so good about yourself. But, I like to think it’s meant to help and not hurt. We’ve all been privileged to hurtful and bad criticism. You know, the stuff that is meant to tear us down, not help us be better.
So, let’s see what I, and even you can do with this little nugget of criticism…I mean feedback.
First, I stop and ask myself, can it possibly be true? Did I drop the ball and not follow through on something or with somebody over the last few months.
The little voice inside me is telling me, yes. I know it is probably true, something I’ll have to face.
Ugghh, and that really sucks. No one likes to face shizzle – like, no one says, “Hey, you! Tell me everything wrong, or bad or crappy about me…please!”
No. One. Ever.
What do I do?
Breathe. You must prepare yourself for the worst…prepare yourself for a whole bunch of shizzle.
Then you begin at the beginning. For me, I open the email file…135,410 at the time of writing and recording this. Obviously those are spam, promotions, social, etc. I first go through all the STARRED emails, because those are the ones I apparently felt were important and required attention – probably dropped the ball on a few of them.
Once I collect as many of the unfilled promises, I will attempt to mend the broken fences. I’m not perfect, but I do believe in mending or building a bridge.
Thankfully, I only found two broken promises. Doesn’t excuse my shizzle, and those two promises must be fixed – or attempted.
If you’re human, you most likely understand shizzle. If you’re a business person, you should also understand shizzle. If you’re a single parent with a business and trying to find you time…Oh heck yes, you understand shizzle happens! And for that, all you can do is try to be better, do more and allow yourself grace.
Hey, I’ll be the first to admit, I suck at apologies and facing letting others down. I truly believe no one has the intention of shizzle or letting others down…life happens.
So to all of you I have made promises to, this is for you. I will work on not promising what I can’t follow through on. Really. I will really, really try not to write a check my arse can’t cover.
Getting Shizzleless
Starting today I will get my act together and have a lot less SHIZZLE days, especially for those of you who want to hear or read what I have to say. My promise to you! I will become the 10% shizzleless population.
What does 10% shizzless mean?
10% is the percent of people who actually succeed at X. X represents a goal or actually doing what you say you’ll do.
10% for me is not only following through on what I promise, but going beyond, over delivering, under promising.
Let’s use writing a book – 90% won’t ever do.
That means 10% will actually follow through on what they say they will do. They will find a way through the shizzle of life.
But so what? What does all this mean anyway…
It means, my friend, that what people are saying and doing… two different things and what they are doing or have done or hope to do ISN’T, DIDN’T, and WON’T WORK.
If you’re trying to balance family and biz…I get you! It’s tough on top of everything else in your life. And, if you’re hoping to write a book, you have two options:
- Give up the idea of writing a book and resign yourself to staying on the dreaming path – as you’ve always done. Let the SHIZZLE win.
- Do something. Take power over the shizzle.
For some people, option one is a viable option.
But what if you’re like I was when I was constantly hoping…
- Hoping to write a book…
- Hoping to finish a book…
- Hoping to publish a book…
Hoping was, is simply unacceptable… Hoping was a whole lot of shizzle.
To get out of the shizzle, I needed a new path and a new plan.
New Path, New Plan
What if there is this powerful force pushing you toward and onto a new path.
You don’t want shizzle (though shizzle will happen from time to time, nothing in life is perfect or predictable). You do want a roadmap to navigate yourself on the new path – the path of writing, sharing and stepping into your story.
You don’t want hoping…
You want less shizzle…
And that roadmap had better look VERY DIFFERENT than the one the masses out there are following.
Because 99.90% of the roadmaps and people in hopeland are failing.
Over and over again shizzle continues to happen.
What if I share with you what it is I do and what I recommend you do… I mean, what if the 10% who are doing, living and stepping onto their new path are correct?
And it has to be.
Otherwise it won’t work.
First you need a challenge. The challenge allows you to discover what is and isn’t working. Much like when writers want to write a new book – brainstorming of topics, titles, characters, etc.
Second thing you need to not let shizzle happen… a plan. You need to know what you need to do and when to do those things. If you don’t have a plan, you’ll end up spinning your wheels, wasting time and ultimately being a chef throwing spaghetti at a wall hoping it sticks.
There is always a better way. There are a ton of resources and ways – it’s only a matter of finding the one (or multiple ones) that work for you and your lifestyle – no more shizzle days!
Shizzle happens to the best of us with the purest of intentions.
I believe we all try to find a healthy balance in life…
I know there is a better way to balance family and business – to have less shizzle in our lives.
If you head to the website and look under this episode of the podcast, you’ll find a resource to get you started on your new path and not stuck where you’ve been, and certainly not in shizzle land.
Until next time…
So how do you handle the shizzle? I’d love to hear about your process!
Leave a comment and let’s talk about it.
That’s all for this episode and post.
Remember this…You’re just one word away…
I appreciate each and every one of you for listening and reading the transcript or the blog post. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out. You can always email me at susan@susanrkiley.com.
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The Writer Insider produced by Susan Kiley and edited by, David L. White.