Articles
Business for Busy Minds: interview on Beyond Business
Debbie Lee, host of the podcast Beyond Business, is an absolute delight, and she brought me on to chat about running an ADHD-friendly coaching business. What stands out for me is our conversation about the widely varying roles we assume business owners to be able...
The Importance (and Difficulties) of Sticking to a Plan as a Business Owner
I spent all day Sunday making a fairy house with my family. We put the leaf in the dining room table, heaped it with supplies, and followed our creative whims. I glue-gunned a tiny fairy banner, my daughter sewed a hammock, and my partner constructed itty bitty...
Improve your critical thinking skills with this one question: Is that really true?
Two things I hear this week sent me into unexpected spirals. The first was coaching related, and the second was feeding children related, but both benefited from my (sometimes inconvenient) habit of questioning conventional wisdom. Let me share the stories with you...
How do I estimate the time for a task or project in my business?
How does it happen that every day things seem to fall behind schedule? Even with a list, time blocking, and maybe even a plan, there never seems to be enough time in the workday. I see business owners struggle with this All. The. Time. They ask things like “I’ve...
How Things Will Shift if You View Your Business as an Experiment
Today I wanted to ponder with you the idea of experimenting in our businesses. I was talking to a friend who finds my view on experiments liberating because she always thought there was one right way to do business. You just follow the steps. She wanted to know...
What Makes a Community ADHD-Friendly?
If you have ADHD (or suspect you do), you’ve certainly been in some very UNfriendly business spaces. Long slide presentations, one-size-fits-all systems, constant criticism, and even facilitators who deny ADHD even exists. If you’ve been a facilitator, you may have...
Sometimes It’s Enough to Just Breathe
Photo by cottonbro studio For the past year my back has been giving me trouble. Not consistently, and not usually in the same place, but just enough to be really inconvenient and to make me feel like I’m letting it down somehow. Of course I should exercise more (or...
My Business Coaching Approach (and concerns about “mindset coaching”)
After 10 years of coaching, you can probably imagine I’ve tried a lot of different styles and approaches, especially since I’ve coached in so many other businesses where I’ve had to adopt whatever approach they asked me to. I’ve been a chameleon, and although tough...
Using Asana to Manage Your Workflows, Projects, and Tasks
I often get asked about how I keep track of things in my business. I’ve tried all sorts of other tools like ClickUp, Trello, and Airtable, but year after year I keep coming back to Asana. It’s simple but has enough features to do what I want it to do, and it’s very...
Making Imperfect Decisions (even when they feel uncomfortable or overwhelming)
All I can think about right now are colour choices. I’m in the beginning phases of a website makeover and I’ve completely fixated on updating my brand colours. What ones do I like? What colours make a person feel grounded? What colours have the lowest carbon...
A Pep Talk for You, The Incredible Business Owner
How often do you stop and congratulate yourself for everything you’ve accomplished? When was the last time you really recognized how insanely brave you’ve been for running your own business? Today I want you to know that I see you. I know how hard you’ve worked. I...
Using a Courage-Based Plan to Break Projects Down into Smaller Steps
"I can't do it!!" she wailed. “What part feels too hard?” I asked. "All of it!!" No, this wasn’t a client call. This was the conversation I had with my almost-5-year-old on Saturday morning over pancakes. In our house we make “owl pancakes”...normal pancakes with...
4 Podcasts I Can’t Get Enough Of Right Now
These days, with a long commute to my daughter’s school, podcasts are what keep me informed (and awake). I eagerly look forward to dropping her off because I just can’t wait to pick up on an episode I’ve paused. I’ve always loved podcasts. In fact, listening to a...
Bad Business Habits I Want to Break This Year
Running your own business can sometimes feel like a constant state of fixing things. You get one thing done, then you’re pulled somewhere else in a never-ending cycle. It can mean that certain habits become status-quo, never getting any attention because they...
How and When to Say “Not Now”
I have this dear colleague who absolutely makes me a better coach; we meet every week, and our conversations are inspiring, motivating, and incredibly helpful. She cheers me on, asks hard questions, and gives me the exact amount of compassion I need, and then a...
Why I do 50-Minute Coaching Calls
It's a Win-Win! Length of coaching calls…not the most interesting topic for an article, right? As usual, it’s about much more than that. Today’s inspiration started with some criticism about the length of my coaching calls, then a self-doubt spiral, a conversation...
Time to Simplify Your Business? 7 Ideas to Get You Started
Believe it or not, this idea of simplicity in business has not always been obvious to me. When I started my first business as a health coach over ten years ago, I did alllllll the things. Seriously, I had booths at trade shows, I had a podcast, I did all the things...
Developing a Deeper Noticing Practice
Do you pick a word of the year? This year mine is “notice”. I’d love something a little sassier or badass but for some reason this word has been sticking. And of course, now I’m noticing the word “notice” everywhere I look, so I thought I’d explore the word with...
Are You A Multi-Passionate Business Owner, or is Your Self-Doubt Running the Show? (or both?)
As a business owner, regardless of your personality, you will inevitably be pulled and stretched in every possible direction. No matter where you turn you find a new way of doing things, tools or techniques you hadn’t thought of before, and an endless maze of ways...
Ethical Copywriting with Lauren Van Mullem
If you run a business based on trust and relationships, this was made for you. When I first became a coach, copywriting was a skill I invested a lot of time and money into. I followed the templates, used all the key phrases, and basically just did as I was told....
How to Make Yearly Planning More Meaningful and Effective with Laura Posey
What do you think of when you think of planning your business for the year? Do you think of SMART goals? Do you think of the failures you’ve had in the past? Do you think about the plan you made but then promptly lost somewhere? Or do you think of nothing because...
Create an End-Of-Month Routine to Free Up Your Mind for the More Important Things
set your month up to be productive and profitable How do you want to feel in your business? Take a second and see what words come to mind. Creative, in flow, powerful, on top of things, at ease, inspired, generous, abundant…anything else? I would argue that systems...
How I Get Quality Articles Written and Published Most Weeks
When we follow coaches or experts, we subconsciously assume they have it all figured out. If they’re teaching something, they must know better than we do, right? Of course, sometimes this is true. Hopefully they have studied and researched the topic, and what...
What to Do When You’re Not on Track to Meet Your Goals
In the Northern Hemisphere, September is often a time of reckoning: school starts back up, new habits are declared, and we re-look at our goals. For small business owners who set goals back in January, September is crunch time. After a summer of working as little...
Mindful Coworking and Embodiment with Daniela Hofmann
Daniela Hofmann is a beautiful soul who I’m thrilled to introduce you to today. I met her last year as a fellow member of a mastermind, and I’ve learned so much about mindfulness and intentionality from her ever since. I interviewed Daniela all about mindful...
Summer Reading List 2023
Sometimes these articles can get a little serious, so today I thought I’d write to you about one of my favourite things…books! And not just a list of “best business books of 2023” but a snapshot of what books have my attention right now. You game to join me? I’ve...
Setting You and Your Virtual Assistant Up for Success
The business owners I work with tend to have endless to-do lists and not enough time to get stuff done, so a natural next step for many of them is to hire help. Often that help comes in the form of an assistant, and these days the assistant typically works online....
How to Take Your Idea from Chaotic Thought to Concrete Reality
Deep Dive Coaching Explained “It’s like I’m in a room filled with balloons, and I’m jumping around like a crazy person trying to grab them all. Then you come in and you calmly collect the balloons, organize them, and hand them back to me. That’s what it’s like to...
Using Win-Win Agreements to Set Projects and Partnerships Up For Success
We’ve all been part of a group project situation where there are the people that do all the work, and the people who don’t pull their weight, for whatever reason. That’s manageable when the stakes are low, but when it comes to your business it’s important to get...
What the “Shoulds” and “Have Tos” are Telling You in Your Business
Two of the most noticeable phrases to a coach are “I should” and “I have to”. When a client says those words, it could be the topic of an entire call to unpack their meaning. And yet, in our everyday life, these words appear constantly: “I have to do my taxes”, “I...
What is Self-Doubt, Really?
A client is late paying an invoice…what do you do? A. You calmly send them a message reminding them to pay their invoice, and you move on with the rest of your day. B. You agonize over what this means…did they not like the service? Do they think it’s too...
Website Considerations Beyond Conversions – hidden things to think about when building an accessible and ethical website
How many people truly love their website? Over and over, even people with brand new (expensive) websites feel like there are things to fix and they want to change. I get it. For solo business owners especially, your website is a reflection of YOU, and it is...
Building FreeEO Days into Your Workweek — No Clients, No Meetings, No Rushing
Ever heard of a “CEO Day” for your business? A day where you do strategic planning, finances, take a walk…all the things that help you plan for the month ahead. I love this idea, but the name is problematic. Have you ever met a typical CEO? They’re in non-stop...
How to Set a Boundary That Actually Works
Overworking to meet a client’s ever-escalating demands. Checking email in the evenings and on the weekends. Catching up on work on your days off. Taking on a client you know isn’t a great fit for you. Letting invoice payments drag on and on. These are common...
I Schedule Stuff in My Calendar and I Don’t Stick to It…Help!
You’re trying to get “back on track” and “get organized” so you start putting all your appointments and tasks in your calendar. You “time block” like people (including me) suggest. Monday morning comes and before 10am you’re already off the rails and behind...
An Insider Look at the 5 Notebooks I Use to Keep My Business Organized
Why is it so hard to resist a beautiful notebook? Why do most of us have stacks of unused or partially used and abandoned notebooks hidden away somewhere? And don’t get me started on fancy pens… But seriously, organizing feels like a never-ending quest. There’s...
Are my financial goals realistic?
The most frustrating part of budgeting, for me, is reconciling it with the bank accounts. Every month, without fail, my app has different numbers than the bank. I go through each transaction one by one, and most of the time I notice somewhere I made a mistake so I...
Values and Desires: Your North Star for an Aligned Business
What contributes the most to the success of your business? Is it client results? Marketing strategy? Business model? The connections you have? How good you are at sales? Compelling branding? If we look at a different scenario, what makes a road trip super fun? How...
What to Talk About in a Business Coaching Session
You’ve hired a coach to help you with your business. Amazing! Now what? Many “coaching” programs have a curriculum they follow, so they guide you through in more of a consulting or teaching way step-by-step. But true coaching tends to be client-led, meaning the...
Feeling Frustrated and Impatient? Try Celebrating!
I’ve been really grumpy this week. I have a shorter fuse than usual, stupid things are really annoying me, and the frustrations have been piling on top of one another endlessly. There have been glimpses of loveliness, but I seem to keep going back to this unusual...
Quick-Start Guide to Systems for Business Owners — What Systems Are, Why You Need Them, and How to Create Them Fast
Systems are a topic people find life-changing when they implement them, but very few people seek to learn more about, and almost no one prioritizes them in their business. How do I know this? A few years ago I thought I’d launch a program about systems, but my...
How to Get Back to Work When You’ve Lost Momentum
First, throw in a quick load of laundry. Then clean off your desk so you can find your keyboard. Your computer needs to update. Better get a handle on the emails that got away from you. Oh, coffee! And maybe a little snack, too. Back to the desk but now onto the...
Balancing Busyness and Stillness
Last week I had an epiphany. For one single day on the weekend, I didn’t plan anything. It was very uncomfortable for me since my default is to decide to do something elaborate, invite everyone I know, then spend the day prepping and fielding text messages....
Unpacking Excuses — The Legitimate Ones, the Not-So-Legitimate Ones, and Everything In Between
The dishwasher noise is distracting me. I should order our meat for the month. Those LinkedIn notifications have been there an awfully long time, maybe I should check them. The topic I was planning on writing about isn’t ready to be written yet. I’m just so...
Quickly Manage Your Email While Staying Sane (without any fancy tools or third-party apps)
I got my first email address in 1999. Hotmail, if you’re curious. Our teacher sat us down in a computer lab and walked us through step-by-step how to sign up for an email address. I remember trying to pick the perfect name, and I remember sending emails back and...
The End-Of-Year Reflection Ritual I Use to Get Ready for Planning
Last night we finally got our first snow. My Christmas shopping is almost done, and this is the last blog post until the new year. This weekend we’ll put up our tree, and next week will be a short work-week. The family group text is filled with who is bringing what...
The 6 Key Areas I Help Every Small Business Owner With
Each business is different. Not just because they sell different services or because they have different strategies, but because each business owner has their own unique vision for their life. Their hopes and dreams vary considerably and each one requires a nuanced...
An End-of-Year Planning Process that Actually Works — How I Set My Year Up For Ease and Build a Plan I Can Stick To
Would you believe me if I said I just wing it every year in my business? Go with the flow and see what happens? No! Of course not! It would be completely ridiculous to leave my livelihood up to a whim. And yet, if you’re being really honest with yourself, will you...
Am I Doing Enough to Stop the World from Imploding?
The Power of Leading by Example The juiciest conversations always happen after dark, once the kids are asleep, in hushed but passionate voices. In this case there was limited alcohol but an abundance of gourmet chocolate, in the safe company of dear friends. The...
A Step-By-Step Guide to Manage Your Time With Predictability and Clarity (so you can stop working evenings and weekends and finally take a holiday)
First, let’s get some things out of the way. 1. You can’t actually manage time, you can only manage your attention 2. No matter how efficient you are, you’ll never be able to magically fit too many things into one day The theme in my coaching calls this month seems...
What to Do When You Have Waaaaaay Too Much On Your Plate
I was exhausted. My daily nap wasn’t helping, nor was eating healthy and taking care of myself. When I did any exercise, I would fall asleep on the floor when I was done. This is what burnout feels like, I finally realized. In addition to amazing support from my...
Do you need a signature system, model, or framework to have a successful business?
My current framework for working with clients, and why I resisted having one for so long Why is this article so hard to write? Every time I’ve tried over the past few months I’ve given up and written something else instead. The framework is easy, and it’s how I...
“They Weren’t Coachable” And Other Stupid Things Coaches Say When Their Clients Don’t Get Results
Today I just have a full-blown rant for you. This usually isn’t my style because I like to give you actionable things to work with, but we need to talk about this. There’s a phrase coaches use when a client isn’t getting results, and that is “they’re just not...
The Truth About Free Coaching and Why I Offer Gift Sessions
Hand up if you’ve spent a ton of non-refundable money on a service, only to find a pit in your stomach because you really didn’t align with the practitioner… Other hand up if you’ve been on a “discovery call” with a coach or practitioner only to be sold to by them...
Use This Tool When You’re Feeling Trapped or Wanting to Accelerate Your Progress (my magic trick for rekindling excitement and resilience)
Unfortunately, feeling trapped, stuck, desperate, scared, or hopeless, among other things, is not uncommon to the entrepreneur experience. We fluctuate from feelings of high to low and back up in a matter or minutes sometimes, or the feelings can extend over weeks...
The 4 Ways Your Self-Doubt is Showing Up + Using Experiments to Build Self-Belief
“I said no to something! I was invited to dinner with some friends, but I said no because it was our last night on holiday and I wanted to try a new restaurant instead.” This report came from a proud client who, historically, was terrified of offending people, so...
Here’s a Model to Manage Expectations for Yourself and Your Clients (and my fresh spin on it)
I remember sitting at my desk at BlackBerry when my co-worker Andrew excitedly returned to work with a big smile on his face. He had been on a Six Sigma training course, and it was totally blowing his mind. I was 22, and a complete sponge for everything in the...
The Two Kinds of Goals You Need to Be Using in Your Business
and an innovative courage-based planning tool to use when your self-doubt comes between you and your goals How many times have you set goals in your business? And how many of those times did you immediately put them out of sight and forget about them? Or worse, how...
When is the right time to hire a coach for my business?
It is completely possible to have a successful business and never hire a coach. Surprised to hear me say that? Think about it for even a minute, and you know of course it must be true. Technically, you could consider coaching a luxury. And yet, I’m a coach. I was...
Mind Map Like a Pro: An Essential Tool for Idea Generation, Brainstorming, and Problem Solving
It was July of 2011, and I was sitting in a lecture hall at the University of South Australia. Not because I was taking classes, but because I was working a temp job setting up AV equipment for professors. I had just moved to Australia a few months earlier, and the...
The Pros and Cons of Weekly Blogging — Why I do it and what I’ve learned so far
You know that feeling you have in your body when you’re completely resisting something? Mine shows up as a heaviness and a tightness; it’s like my limbs are being weighed down and it takes immense effort to get them to move. I tell myself to do it, but my body...
Should I start a podcast? (and other podcast-related questions I get asked all the time)
UPDATE: Since this article has been published my podcast ah ha! has ended because I have been enjoying writing articles so much. It's a faster and more flexible medium for this phase of my business, but my love for podcasts still has not diminished. We were walking...
Do I need to use social media to grow my business?
Behind closed doors (Zoom doors, of course), in hushed voices, clients and colleagues confess the same thing to me over and over again: “I hate social media.” It’s said with a variety of emotions. Some, it’s exhaustion and exasperation because they’ve been using it...
Stop saying you need to do work that’s fun! (It’s so much more than that) — 12 Words to Use Instead
This article starts, like many of them do, with a story of me being coached. I have my clearest moments when I’m asked tough questions and I verbally process my thoughts. We were talking about marketing and how I don’t like most marketing strategies, and she asked...
How to keep working when the world is going to shit (tldr: I have no idea)
I’ve been trying to write an article about running experiments in your business for nearly 2 hours now. I had it all planned out ahead of time, I made my cup of tea, set up at the kitchen table like I always do. I wrote part of it, and maybe next week you’ll get to...
6 Things Your Procrastination is Telling You (and How To Lovingly Respond to Each One)
It’s 8:45pm, and yet again I find myself doing the mindless ping ponging on my phone. I check email, jump over to see if I have any texts, then swipe three pages over to my folder I’ve named “lame apps”, swipe another two pages, and find the Instagram app. I know I...
Note to Self: It’s Okay to be Awkward
I know I’m not the only one who struggles with outreach — this is a common theme in coaching calls with my clients. My response used to be “just pretend they’re human and say what you would want to say to another human”, but now I know better. Now I know that it’s...
You Don’t Need A Big, Grand “Why” to Have a Successful Business
It happened again. 9 years in, so I should have seen it coming. I don’t know why I thought this time would be different. Last week I was really excited. I started working with a new coach in a new group and one of our first topics was “core message”. I cannot tell...
How can a self-belief coach help with my business?
As I approach my 10 year business anniversary, I reflect on how much my understanding of my own job has changed since the beginning. I used to believe that basic coaching was enough to get someone unstuck — and it was for a lot of people! But over the years as I...
Want Your Business to Be More Profitable? Fix Your Finances with Profit First
That “clarity” you’ve been looking for? This is it. Money. It’s one of the core outcomes of running a business, yet often the least understood by the entrepreneur. It’s a key factor in decision-making for a business, yet the entrepreneur rarely has clarity on where...
14 Things a Thought Partner Can (and Should) Do for You
When you’re running your own business, typically you’re faced with high levels of complexity, a constantly changing marketplace, a deluge of ideas, and lack of community. Where do you look for trustworthy support? How do you sort out the conflicting messages you’re...
9 Years to Reach $100k — why it took so long, how I did it, and what I learned
Am I ready to write about this? I’m not sure. Am I sick of hearing B.S. rhetoric of instant financial success? Absolutely. So here it goes. The coveted $100k year. For most entrepreneurs, this is the milestone they aspire to. They speak it in affirmations, they...
Why Morning Routines Don’t Work for Me and What My Clients Are Experimenting With Instead
The first, last, and only time I ever had a successful morning routine was in 2015. The childless, spouseless (and largely client-less) whimsical days of my business. I decided to write an e-book. Writing is not my favourite thing, and I had just learned the “eat...
Rethinking Confidence: the two kinds of confidence, and how to use both to your advantage
“I’m just not confident enough to…” Fill in the blank. Raise your prices? Ask for a referral? Say no to bad business? Take a vacation? I see this all the time. Clients might also say “I’m too afraid to…” or “I’m really not sure I can…” or “I don’t think I can…” but...
Work with More Ease by Knowing Your Rhythms
Have you noticed that your work tends to have “seasons”? Or different energies at different times of the year? Have you noticed the same is true for your days? I’ve been thinking about this a lot as we close out Q4 and try to finish 2021 strong. Let’s explore how...
Why I Haven’t Worked Fridays in at Least 5 Years (and How You Can Do It Too)
For the most part I’m not a bragger, but one thing I LOVE shouting about from the rooftops is my 4-day work week. I am so proud of the life I built that I can take Fridays off each and every week with ease. And I truly believe it’s possible for every entrepreneur....
A Simple Tool I Use to Make Writing Copy and Content Easier
As an INTJ, one of my superpowers is “order out of chaos”. This kind of structure comes very naturally to me, but I’ve learned that many of my clients appreciate when I can help them add order and processes to their businesses as well. One of the ways I do this is...
Understanding Overwhelm + How to Deal
4 years I’ve lived in this house. 4 years of white walls. Worse than white, because they were only primed so every scuff or speck of dirt stuck and stayed on forever. 4 years of family asking me when we were going to paint the house. 4 years of feeling paralyzed...
How to Balance Working ON Your Business vs. IN Your Business
“I can’t keep putting in all these hours — it’s not sustainable for me.” “I don’t have time to hire someone; it will take time out of my business and I’m already maxed out.” “How can I possibly make more money if I’m already working way too much?” Ultimately, “I’m...