Rest and Recharge - How To Build A Branding Agency You Love
Whenever we talk about success in business, it's usually about how to make more money, more profit, get more clients, better clients, improve your process, improve your systems etc. etc.
But how often do we talk about the personal side of business success?
And how can you really even call it a successful business if it's draining you, personally and physically?
Well you’ve got to ask yourself why you even want to build a successful business. It’s probably because you want to have a life that you’re proud of, and that you enjoy living. And your personal and physical health is absolutely a part of that.
So how do you find the balance without sacrifice?
The cost of trying to do it all
The topic of work/life balance is one I see a lot. But it usually refers to corporate life and employees looking for corporate cultures that have a work/life balance.
When you work for yourself, it's a completely different animal, because even when you put boundaries in place, and you don't work all the time, your mind can still be working and your body can still feel the stress of your business.
I saw an Instagram Reel from Alex Hormozi. He’s got some really great content, but he's also a beast, he's nuts!
He reminds me of how I used to work 10 years ago.
In this Reel, he says, ‘Why would you get up and meditate and read and exercise, when that's your most productive hour of the day? Why wouldn't you just get up and work? That's what you should do - you should take that productive time and put it to good use.’
I can completely relate to that. I used to get up and go straight to work.
I was motivated to work but really, I was motivated by fear because, I was afraid that if I didn't work enough, I would not make enough money to live.
Either way, I had that drive inside of me and I would work all the time.
I would work from the moment I got up. And I was happy to work into the evening, I was happy to work on the weekends, whatever I needed to do, I needed to get this done.
Of course there is no ‘done’ when it comes to your business. So I was perpetually chasing this finish line that just didn't exist.
And then I would completely burn out, get migraines and be flat on my back for days. That was my body's way of forcing me to stop working and rest.
I remember a period of time where I would tell my husband and business partner, Steve, ‘I can work every day, I have no problem working every day.’
I used to be a dancer, and I love dancing. But I remember part of being trained as a dancer is to push through the pain to show up even when it doesn't feel good. If it doesn't hurt, you're not doing it right. I distinctly remember that.
So imagine how much that's translated into my work life. It made me really tough. It made me really determined. And it made me feel like I can do this no matter what. I can get up and make this happen no matter how I feel.
So I used to tell Steve, ‘I have no problem working seven days a week if this needs to get done.’ And I actually didn't understand why he couldn't.
He would tell me ‘Listen, after six or seven days of work in a row, I need a break, I start to go nuts, I start to go crazy and I get anxious.’
I didn't understand that at the time, but I understand it now. He was aware of what this work was doing to him, and I was ignoring it and pushing through.
But it was definitely taking a toll on me.
There were the migraines. There was tension in my neck. All kinds of signs.
But I had been trained from a very young age to ignore those signs, because no matter how you feel, you go to ballet class, right? You're not allowed to sit on the sides, and you're not allowed to be sick.
So I just learned that deep inside and that's how I showed up.
Over the years as I was trying to treat these chronic pains. It’s so funny in retrospect!
‘I wonder why I get all these migraines, I wonder why I have all this tension in my neck?’
Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm working seven days a week and thinking about my business 24/7 and I never ‘switch off’.
And yet, I don't know why I get these headaches.
Crazy, right?
Slowly I started to get that working so intensely for such long periods of time was a factor. And so I slowly started to change my habits.
Gradually, I stopped working on weekends.
2017 - the year that changed everything
In 2017, Steve and I took a two month vacation to Europe, where we completely unplugged. We really didn't tell anybody we were going except our friends, and we didn't post it online.
Whenever I would get enquiries for client work, I would just say, ‘Hey, our next availability is in September.’ I just didn't say why.
So I was booking in clients for when we came back, but I didn't book anything while we were there.
We had such an amazing trip. We’d like to go on trips for long periods of time, at least two or three weeks, because I find it takes me at least a week to really unhook from my existing lifestyle and get used to a different pace of living.
After a couple of weeks, I really eased into it, and I got really used to the European lifestyle.
We were road tripping all around the coast of Spain and southern Spain.
We went to visit our friends in Rome and Tuscany. We saw our friends in London.
We didn't plan it much. We just knew the people we wanted to visit but we were just renting cars, buying plane tickets while we were there and booking hotel rooms for the next night as we drove along the coast.
It was very freeing - we could do whatever we wanted.
While we were there, we did some work too. Some afternoons, we would work at around 4pm for a couple of hours, having spent the morning either driving or just going to the beach, or going into town for breakfast and reading all day.
At around 3pm or 4pm, we'd go back to our hotel room and do a little bit of work, like writing a Forbes article.
We even did a couple of BrandShrinks (our Lead Product) while we were there. We’d book our BrandShrink interviews for 4pm, because it was 10am back in New York, and so I let people still book them.
And we wouldn't even tell them we were in Spain - we would just do them as if we were back home.
And then I’d write up the BrandShrink brief in a couple of hours, maybe three, on some of the days.
And I would get so much done!
I would get way more done in this two or three hour block than sometimes I might get done in a whole day sitting at the office.
It was pretty incredible.
After a long day of laying by the beach, reading books and being all inspired, I would like to bang out these articles, and I would write up the BrandShrinks in no time - I was so clear headed.
And then at eight or nine (because they eat really late in Spain), we would go out and have this whole evening.
It was amazing. It was like ‘Wow, the day is so long, and I'm getting so much done!’
As our trip came to an end, Steve and I were sad and scared that we were going to lose this amazing experience. We were wondering - should we move to Spain?
We even kept calling this way of living ‘Spain brain’, because we just had these long days of relaxation with these little spurts of work that were really productive.
So as the trip neared the end, we realized we had to bring this home. We asked ourselves - ‘How do we live the Spain brain life in Brooklyn?’
And so we wrote out this plan in one of Steve's journals.
We decided that we weren’t going to work until 1pm in the afternoon. So we are going to carve out all this time for ourselves in the morning. And that way, we can have this creative time and will purposefully say we just don't work, and instead create this space for our personal projects.
Then we would work from 1-6pm. That's plenty of time. It’s only three hours less than a normal workday.
So that gets us to 25 hours a week.
In order to do that we said, ‘We're going to have to get more done in less time.’
So we started to think creatively about how we were going to fit all the things that we normally do into a five hour block.
Just off the bat, we assumed we're going to be more productive because we're working fewer hours. And we're working after having this whole morning of creativity. So we're going to be more jazzed, more inspired. And if it's anything like it's been in Spain, we will be more productive in that time.
Second, we were going to have to look for ways to outsource more things.
I already had a VA, but I decided that when I came back, I was going to outsource as much as humanly possible to her. And just by doing that, I knew that I could free up at least a few of those hours.
Third, we needed to have a plan going into each workday.
I had never been really good about planning out my work days before that - I would just show up.
I would always have an ongoing running list of things to do, and my day was all about trying to do as many of those things as possible.
Instead we switched to a process of setting our goals for the week, and at the end of each day, we wrote down exactly what we're going to do the next day.
That way, when we showed up at 1pm, we would know exactly what we were working on, and just get right to work.
We would be very clear, and wouldn't waste any time on figuring out what we're going to do.
I think that’s the biggest reason we were able to get all the work done in such a short time. By having such a clear idea of what we were working on, there was a lot less dilly-dallying - no mindless Facebook scrolling because I was tired or looking for a distraction.
I knew what I was doing, I'd come in, I'd get to work and it'd be done.
So we came home with this plan and I have to admit that as soon as we were back in our old environment, it was hard!
We would wake up and look at each other and be like, ‘So what are we going to do now? You're going to read for the next three hours? Want to go get some breakfast?’
We went out to a lot of breakfasts that first month!
Sometimes Steve would say, ‘I guess I'm gonna go, draw something or paint.’
It was very weird.
Being in our Brooklyn apartment and trying to have Spain brain was hard, because I wanted to work.
I like the work that I do. But I was purposefully putting these boundaries around it.
It was strange, but I started to get used to it.
And in a couple of months, I couldn’t imagine working more than 25 hours a week.
Another reason we did this is was because when we were in Europe, I got pregnant. So when we came back, we knew that there was a baby coming in nine months, and we had better prepare for the fact that we can't be working all the time.
So that was another great incentive for us to cut down on the amount of hours we were working.
Worst case scenario, Steve could work five hours, and I could work five hours and we could split our days and not need any help. And that's kind of what we were thinking.
It was hard at first, but it got easier. And I got really used to it.
It allowed me to have enough space to do all the things that I should have been doing all along to take care of myself.
I had enough space to exercise every day. I had enough space to have quiet time in my mind. I got to read, which is something that I was often too tired to do at night (which was usually the only time I had).
And as I did that, it also gave me tons of ideas for my work.
And guess what? My productivity didn't go down at all.
What I learned from this is that we will fill the time that we set aside for ourselves. If we have to do it in fewer hours, we will find a way to do it.
When it comes to work/life balance as a business owner, there's two things that you need to think about.
First - you need to give yourself the space to do the activities that are going to take care of you.
Just because I was powering through and feeling like I could work all the time, it didn't mean that my health was reacting well to it.
We all know that no matter how strong we think we are, everybody needs rest. Everybody needs exercise, and everybody is going to respond well to eating good food.
If you don't have any time to make sure that you're nourishing your body, sleeping well and taking care of yourself by exercising, you are not going to feel as good. That's just science.
And those are things we entrepreneurs say that we don't have time to do, but we only don't have time to do them because we're not being creative thinkers about how we're spending our time.
I would challenge you instead to say,
‘Here's all the things that I know are going to give me great physical and mental health. And here's what that looks like in my schedule. If I didn't have to worry about my business, it would look like this…
…I go to yoga three times a week, or,
…I go to a bootcamp three times a week, or
…I go for a run, or
…I sit down and eat proper meals three times a day, or
…I cook for my family instead of getting takeout, or
…I order good food to be prepared for me.’
It can look however it looks to you.
But the point is - do you know what that is?
Have you actually looked at it and tried to put it into a schedule so you can see what it would look like if you did this?
And how much time would you then have available for your business?
Once you do that, you might find you have less time available, but then you can go back to outsourcing as much as you can, and planning each day.
Those two things alone allowed me to get as much or more done in a five hour day than I was probably doing in an eight or ten hours. I was just as productive.
Let me say that again.
I was just as productive that year, leading up to the birth of my son Axel, as I was the year before when I was working all the time.
In fact, I was probably more productive. And I felt so much better!
Second - you need that space to not think about your business.
I can’t stress this one enough. As business owners, it's really hard for us to turn off.
Take this from somebody who used to think ‘But I love my business! I love thinking about it - I don't want to turn off!’
But in retrospect, I think that was partially coming from fear.
My fear was that if I turned off, or I didn't think about it for a little bit - somehow I would flounder.
And I think it was also partially identifying myself as somebody who could do it all.
I was strong enough and determined enough - I'm a hustler!
Why would I need to set time aside for other things, for clearing my mind?
I think that felt like it was part of that identity.
What does success actually look like?
What does success in business look like to you?
Do you think about your personal and physical health when it comes to what a successful business is going to look like?
Can you even be successful in business if your health is failing?
If you don't have time to spend with the people you love?
Can you really call that success?
I read a book by Bronnie Ware - an Australian nurse who spent years in a hospice, caring for patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives.
In her book, ‘The Top Five Regrets of the Dying’, she shares how she found those regrets were the same things over and over again.
Number two was ‘I wish I hadn't worked so hard’.
Number four was ‘I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends’.
Nobody regretted that they hadn't worked hard enough. Nobody regretted anything about their careers or their businesses.
They cared that they had been true to themselves. They cared that they had expressed themselves and that they had let themselves be happier.
In fact, that was number five, ‘I wish I had let myself be happier’.
Success in business is not success if your life isn't successful. So think about what life being successful looks like.
And give yourself the space and make a plan.
Because I don't think you have to sacrifice your personal and mental health for your business.
And I don't think you have to sacrifice your business for your personal and mental health.
I think you can have both. You just have to have an intention, plan it and make it happen.
Having both business health and physical health & mental health.
So in this blog post, I'm going to give you some homework.
I want you to sit down and write out what a perfect work week would look like, where you're taking care of both yourself and your business, and carve out exactly how many hours you could actually give your business for it to succeed.
Then, if it's fewer hours than you have been giving it now, look at all the things that you are doing and ask ‘How can I be more efficient in this? How can I outsource this? What can I do to make sure that I'm still attaining this level of output and I'm still moving my goals forward?’
I promise you, you're not working as efficiently as you could be right now.
Another thing that I started doing a couple of years ago, is planning out my time off for the whole year from the very beginning of the year.
So when I do our big goal setting session in January with my No BS Agency Mastery students, I have everybody look at a year-long calendar and decide how many days off they want every month and every quarter.
How many vacations do they want to take? Do they want to take a couple of big vacations? Or do they want to take a three day weekend every month?
And then I have everyone block that out in their calendar first.
And one of the things that I did even before the start of this year is decide that I was going to take off the entire month of August.
Steve and I rented a house on a beach, we went there and invited friends to come stay with us.
It's not actually that far from our house - it’s just an hour outside of the city.
And we were so looking forward to just having this big chunk of time to unwind, enjoy a slower pace of life and recharge.
And I'm so glad that I scheduled that almost 9-10 months earlier.
Because if I was deciding whether or not to book that a few weeks or even a month before, I wouldn't be able to, because I would have things on my calendar.
But because I scheduled it so far in advance - that month has been completely booked all year. So everything I've been doing has been an anticipation of the fact that I'm not going to be available for August.
Sure - there’ll be a couple of things I’ll need to show up for, and I'm okay with that. If that allows me to have this month away and allows me to have built this business that I love, then I think it's worth it.
So on that note, I wish you a relaxing, recharging and highly successful business!
Here’s what you need to get…
Running a successful branding agency is more than growing profits month on month, year on year. If your health and relationships are crap as a result, I don’t call that a success, because your life will just suck!
Instead, find creative ways to have both business success, and personal success. What activities do you love to do that really take care of you, outside of your agency? What time is in your schedule when you’re not even thinking about your agency?
And when is your vacation time for the year? Yes, entrepreneurs get time off too!
Use that creative genius you give your clients in designing how you want your branding agency, and your life, to work, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the results.
P.S. You can always jump on a call with my team if you want to fast-track your way to building a great branding agency and a great life, and all my other tools and strategies to scale up your agency - just go here to get started!