How do you do it all?

#67 - How Do you do it all

Tue, May 28, 2024 12:15PM • 20:05

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

podcast, business, love, amazing, episode, helps, photos, choosing, emma, work, book, good, life, freedom, socials, retreat, travel, people, incredible, create

00:01

Do you want to live a life of freedom and adventure? Are you wanting more than the daily grind? Me too. Welcome to the Emma Lovell show, a place where we talk about living a life you love now, I'm your host, Emma Lovell, and my number one value is freedom. I've spent the last 14 years running a business and traveling the world. And now I take my husband and toddler along for the adventure to it's possible and I know you can create a life doing what you truly love as well. This podcast will inspire, motivate and encourage you to go after your dreams to create a life you love until you get now don't wait for a time and or someday in the future. I'll be sharing episodes weekly about how I harmonize business travel and self care. I'll also bring on incredible guests to share their journeys, wins the challenges and how they're creating a life they love. Let's jump in and get dreaming. This is a space for you to manifest a life you love.

01:03

I would like to acknowledge and recognize Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first peoples of this place now known as Australia. I am grateful for the continuing care of the land waterways and skies where I work live, listen, learn and play. From here on you can bear country and from wherever you are listening, I pay my respects to the elders past and present.

01:27

Hello, and welcome to today's episode. I was meant to release this one in a few weeks time. But I thought it's really important to do it now. Because I'm getting this question a lot. How do you do it all? How do you do it all? The answer is I don't. I feel like I've done this episode before.

01:45

I've either done it on this, or on my live in love your brand. But I need to do it again. Because I get asked this all the time. How do you do it all. And the funny thing is I'm literally recording this

01:57

in a 10 to 15 minute window while my friend is off for a swim before we then drive to Brisbane, where I will host my retreat on retreat day teaching people how to run profitable retreats tomorrow. But we have to get up to Brisbane to get to the hotel to check in. So how do I do it all. I take pockets of time. I take pockets of time and I use them well. I'm extremely deadline driven. And so her saying I want to go for a swim. I'm like great. I've got 10 to 15 minutes to do this. I am sitting in spare room, sort of my of our family holiday house. And yes, if anybody's watching the video, I'm on the bed, because the acoustics are a bit better. And I also am starting to use a microphone I'm starting to use like a wireless microphone. But I didn't plug it in. And that's fine. I think how I do it all is that I don't surrender to perfectionism. Sorry, oh, I surrender. And I don't allow for perfectionism. So Dan is better than perfect is something that is just a motto, it should be a motto and in my business that should be stamped on my forehead. Because if you wait for things to be perfect, and you wait for things to be done to the highest highest degree of goodness, you will not get anything done. And I know that even

03:23

you know if I've marked something as unread and an email and push it away.

03:28

Anything goes in the backlog and it doesn't get done. So sometimes it's like set a timer and get it done. And this morning, I did a writing sprint. So really in this flow with my book. So wrote for 45 minutes, got a chapter done, which people think, you know, I I said my challenge this week is to write three chapters and people like, you can't do that. Or, Oh, why haven't you done that already? I'm like, because I know that when I'm in the zone, I'm in the zone and so I don't have time to mess around anymore. So 45 minutes, I went, yep, open it up. Okay, I'm gonna just start writing this chapter. And then I kind of like, I think that's done. So there's gonna be an editing process. So I have to just get a draft done. And it's, it's like 80% there. So now it's like, okay, just finalize what you have put in or what you have, and then we can at least have something to work with.

04:22

Then I did some admin because I've been getting emails about

04:27

you know, my invoices, my tax invoices aren't good enough to bookkeepers. So we have to like, we had to look at some things. It's like, okay, well, let's fix their problem. And let's get those things done. And so so the emails that's done, my team is asking, I'm saying to my team, you know, I've, I'm out all day tomorrow. So what do you need done? And it's a bit about choosing what is most important because we have a list as long as all the time what has to get done today, what else can get left? And when you've got a big project or a big thing on you have to get to the point where you go

05:00

If I can't do it all, and I'm not doing it all, so what can I do? And I'm coming off the back of being sick for two weeks, I was sick for 10 days pretty bad. I even had to fly to Sydney.

05:12

I had booked in a creative getaway, which is like a private retreat with some business colleagues. And then I had a photoshoot for my book cover that could not wait any longer. And so I had to get on with it. But what we did do is that I didn't do it all. I just don't do it all. It might look like I'm doing it all. But I'm not one.

05:34

I do postpone things. I do cancel things. I do move things. And I had to move a lot of podcasts, Episode recordings and things like that for those two weeks, because I simply wasn't up to speaking, I had a cough

05:45

and felt pretty foggy in the head. So I just couldn't do it. And that was my body telling me to rest. But there were other things that I could do. So I did those in the background. And I could keep things moving. But the other thing is I don't do it all because I don't do it. So you might see a lot of stuff that comes from me. It's not me. I have the most amazing vas. I have two VAs in the Philippines. One focuses on my socials and my creation. So design work. The other one focuses on my podcast, he edits my podcast schedules, the podcast to go out, post the content to socials, helps me draft the ATMs that go out the newsletters that go out about the podcast.

06:27

You know, they I do the final touches on these things. I do the recording, of course. But you know, there's a wonderful book called who not how, and another one, which I'm recommending on every single podcast, I just, again need to have a stamp on my forehead. The other one is 10x easier than 2x. And they're both by Dr. Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan. And what they're saying is,

06:49

you 80% of what you're doing, you shouldn't be doing, because it's not your expertise or your skill set. And I know there's a point in your life and in your work where you you kind of it is on you to do those things. And potentially you don't have the capacity to outsource. But then if you don't have the capacity to outsource, then it's looking at your stuff. And I've had to do this and go, What can I do or what's not important, or what do I not want has to wait, because I only have so much time. And so what's the 20% that has to get done, or the 20% that I love doing, or the 20% that I can do with a podcast, I really only do 20% of it, I do the pretty important part of recording. But then you know, I write the description. And then I'm really just checking that there's we have a system and a process for the podcast so that we can actually produce two episodes a week and quite a high volume. But without it being all on me. And it's It's my biggest top tip and I do some pot, I do run a podcast training if you ever want to do that. And I tell people, outsource, you can't. And then the biggest part is editing. It's a big big time suck and it's not necessary. If you don't have editing skills. Even if you do, I think you need to stay in if you're the host, you need to stay in your genius and in your lane.

08:09

The other thing I have is an incredible executive assistant, her name is Amber field, she is amazing. And she keeps me on track. She helps me to sort my calendar, I am horrible with filling up my time. So she really helps me to move things around to communicate to people to block things out and to do a lot of the administration stuff that I really, really don't enjoy. And it really sucks my energy. There are things that require me logins or, you know, personal details and things like that. But if she can do the bulk of it, I can just come in and check it or make the actual phone call or say yes or no. And that's been a huge help.

08:50

Emma's innate ability to lift others her unwavering, authentic authenticity. Her dedication to following her passions are only qualities that radiate from every single part of all her endeavors.

09:07

Whatever she touches and creates is just magical. In a world where everything is trying to mold us. And we're really stem strong, showing us that staying true to ourselves is the ultimate path to success. She is just this amazing Trailblazer has become a dear friend and an amazing mentor.

09:35

But you know, for the past four or five years consecutively first, I'd say five years, I've had bas. I used to have subcontractors in the first 10 years of my business, but they would come in, helped me on a project helped me with some work and then leave and I realized I needed the consistency of support. So having people in my business who helped me the other thing at the moment is like even the book I'm not I'm not doing it all. I have a co

10:00

She helps guide me and keep me on track. She's also my editor. So she'll be editing the book and helping me to know what to include and what not to and making it structurally and grammatically better. And then she's also going to help me with the publishing process, because it's a huge thing. And if you haven't done it before, there's things that you can really mess up like your distribution, I could really, really mess that up. And it could mean that I don't get to sell through some of the major channels like booktopia, and Amazon. And so that's what just made it from Henry Box is doing with me. You know, I don't take my photos, I pay for someone to do my photos. And people have said to me before, why don't you just learn photography? Like, oh, you're really good at taking photos? Why don't you just do it for yourself? Ah, no. And also how rude to the incredible photographers. But I know, like Jade Warren, and Meg Richards and Mary Miller, people have taken my amazing photos Sabrina Rubini. Like, you know, this book cover shoot had to be Jade one, it was incredible. But all of these women have helped me with photos over the time. And I use those. And they're such a helpful way to get my brand out there. So when I as well, when it's like, how do you do it all? How are you showing up all the time, I'm not showing up all the time. We batch my content, we create content from existing resources, I have so many photos and videos of things I've done and things I've said that then my bas can help me to turn those into something else. I'm being very transparent and honest with you, because I don't want you to go around looking at people who are doing all these things and think that they're doing it themselves. It's simply not possible, I would go mad, or I just wouldn't do it. And I did actually cut back on team last year, I had an amazing OBM cat done, but for financial reasons. And whereas in my business, we are stopped, I cut back on work with her. I let go of my VAs again, financial reasons. And it's honestly taken me like six months to get back on track. Because I'm not having that support in my business. And so instead of seeing help, and this is again, what who not how the book talks about is, instead of seeing help and support and outsourcing as a cost, or an expense, see it as an investment. If I invest in these people who are better at me than these things or are more efficient and effective, and can take those things off my plate, then I can do the 20% of stuff that I am amazing at and that I want to be doing. And that becomes then my 100%. And then again, you level up and you go, you know with me right now I need to be writing I need to be

12:36

telling people about the book, I need to be delivering the retreat program tomorrow, no one else can do that. But me for now.

12:45

And I wouldn't want anyone else to write for me or to be telling people.

12:50

But in saying that I have a publicist for the book, she's gonna be getting the media about the book. So when I get to pop up,

12:58

who else have I got the amazing live Muir who's doing my brand strategy.

13:03

So for my website, I've got least doing my graphic design for the web for the website, my podcasts, everything's getting a bit of a refresh and a relook.

13:12

The other thing is I get help at home. I have a lovely husband who is great around the house. But we also have a cleaner with a cleaner once a fortnight, which became a non negotiable, it's $80 a fortnight but I'm like, we're not doing it. And it's not a good use of our time. We can keep on top of things, but we can't do the cleaning

13:33

at this stage of life. And I'm very fortunate if you're listening and you're like, oh, it's all well and good for you. I unfortunate that there there also is that how we're choosing to spend our money and how we're choosing to use our time. I have amazing childcare for my son. And we are very fortunate to have that subsidized by the government. So we do pay but we haven't subsidized so he goes four days a week and the incredible educators look after him teach him. He comes home during the alphabet and it's amazing. We also pay the babysitter sometimes or we ask family and friends to help with him. When we not family. We don't have family in the FBI. So we asked friends and neighbors to help with him. So I think another thing is like

14:19

summary. I don't do it all. So don't think I do, too. I literally don't do it all like so I don't do it all. I sometimes cancel things I sometimes don't show up. I sometimes. Yeah, I have to choose what I do with my time. And I can't do all the things all the time. You might just see that because you see the socials

14:42

too I don't do it all in that I have outsourced a lot of things in my business and my personal life so that I can focus on the things that I love and the things that I really require me and three, I mean, I guess I also do have a lot of energy

15:00

I have a bit of an energizer bunny. So I do do more than the average bear. But that's what I like doing. There's times where even for me, the travel and the toing and froing gets a lot.

15:12

But I do make sure to end with my help and my assistant to make time and space and to have risks. And if I don't my body forces me to. But you know, travel for me is such an energizer. And it's something that I love. And I've managed to include in my business. So even though I'm traveling, I'm still working, I'm still doing something for the business, or I'm still seeing family even though I'm working because I'm going to visit family and friends

15:39

in the places that I'm working, so that's bleisure. That's how I make I combine the business and the travel and the leisure and the life.

15:50

But this might have been an exhausting episode for you to listen to.

15:54

And you might feel tired. But what I wanted to point out is that you don't need to compare to other people and think that they are doing it all and they've got it all figured out. No, because we still have challenges, you still get sick, you make sacrifices, you make choices. It's about choosing how you spend your time choosing how you spend your money, choosing who you spend your time with choosing who you work with making choices.

16:19

In regardless of your financial situation, we have to do that. I know people who make a lot of money, have wonderful businesses, but they all they're still trying to do too much. And they're not even getting to enjoy what they've created and what they've done. And I don't, I don't want that for my life. So I would rather have somebody helping me or doing something for me, which allows me to then enjoy or to have some time to me, so that I can do the big thinking so I can do the enjoying so I can have my own time. and B have the freedom in my life.

16:53

I don't get it right all the time. And I've learned a lot a lot over the past 15 years of my business. But those are gonna be some really important things that you'll read in my book, The Art of pleasure, which comes out on the 21st of August 2024, where I will be talking about the challenges and the sacrifices and the choices that I've made in order to have the pleasure life and where I'm still learning. And I'll share an episode soon on where I thought I was doing an awesome pleasure trip. And I realized that I tried to make it too much of each thing. And that sometimes it is okay to have just a couple of pieces of the bleisure. And then keep a couple pieces over here. It doesn't have to be all the things all the time all at once. So I even have to learn that lesson. Marla's stories, I don't do it all. So stop looking at me start looking at others and thinking how do you do it all? Because simply they're not? If the question is, how can I do more? Or how can I have more freedom? How can I increase my income? How can I get more of what I want, I don't know what you want, you know what you want, I hope. But if that's something that you're struggling with, I can help you with that. I offer our power coaching calls, where we talk about what you want, where you want to go the things that you want in your life. And so I hope you can take some inspiration, motivation, encouragement, on how you can free up some more of your time or be kinder to yourself about the way that you're doing things. But if you really want some specific help, I would love to do that my hour of power sessions are available on my website, Emma lovell.au, forward slash Hour of Power, where you can find them on the work with me page as well. All the links will be in the show notes. Thank you for listening.

18:43

Ah, take a deep breath.

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You don't have to do it all home. You don't have to do it all. And you choose what living a life you love looks like. And you choose what bleisure life looks like. You choose how the how the dynamic in the harmony of business, leisure, travel, family, how all of that works for you.

19:06

And I just hope that I can keep to sharing the real perspective and honesty, but also sharing with you some tips and hacks and tricks

19:15

that I've used in my life to make it work. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time.

19:21

Thank you for listening lovely one. I hope this has inspired you to dream big and start creating a life you love today. If you love what you're hearing, don't forget to follow and rate on Spotify and rate review and subscribe on iTunes. It helps other awesome people to find this podcast and get motivated and inspired as well. Want to stay connected. Come and join the live a life you love group on Facebook or connect with me on Instagram. Emma lovell.au The same as my website. But all the details are in the show notes lovely. I'll see you next episode for more inspiration, motivation and freedom seeking. Go out there

20:00

and live a life you love