59: Whitney Vredenburgh on Focusing on the Right Thing, Not Everything

Episode 59-Focusing on the Right Thing, Not Everything.mp3

Speaker1: [00:00:09] You're listening to the Time to Level Up podcast. I'm your host, business life coach Andrea Libros. I help women in business commit to their own growth personally and professionally. Each week, I'll bring you strategies to help you think clearly gain confidence. Make your time productive. Turn every obstacle into an opportunity. And finally overcome the overwhelm so that you can make money and manage life. Let's create a plan so you have a profitable business, successful career. And best of all. Live with unapologetic ambition. Are you ready to drop the drama and figure out the how in order to reach your goals? You're in the right place. It's time to level up.

[00:00:57] Let's do this.

Speaker2: [00:01:12] Need time to level up, listeners, welcome back to the podcast, so today's client success story is about Whitney Frydenberg, and she and I have been working together creating what I like to call her runway to freedom. When we first met, she was feeling pretty overwhelmed in her business and when truth be told, when we got to the bottom of it, she also was feeling a little bit overwhelmed at home, which was impacting her business. But what we have done over the past eight months is created a new operating system for her business and created a new operating system for her home in a way. So I want you to listen in and look at the elements that we have dissected together over the past eight months and ask yourself if this is something in your business that is worth taking a look at. Ok, sit back, buckle up and listen in to my conversation with Whitney.

Speaker3: [00:02:20] Hey, time to level up, listeners, welcome back to the podcast. So today I have with me, my client and now friend Whitney Rittenberg, who I met through another client, probably, I don't know, nine months ago. And I'm really excited to share with you what she does. First of all, because it's kind of fun and exciting. At least I think it's fun and exciting and the work, some of the work that we have done. So, Whitney, welcome.

Speaker4: [00:02:55] Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Speaker3: [00:02:58] So, OK, so give you. I'm going to give you listeners a little background on Whitney. So here's the scoop. My friends and I think a lot of you can probably relate to this. So Whitney has four children, all under the age of 10, nine, seven and two fours, and she began her working career in marketing and communications. Or she's worked in marketing, communications and sales and customer service for about 10 years. But then she decided she was going to start her own thing. And a lot of us do that start our own thing. So Whitney now has a business called Nested Spaces, and it's a home staging and design business that's in its, I think, fifth year at this point, right? And what do you want? You tell us a little bit about your business.

Speaker4: [00:03:57] Yeah. So like Andrea said, it's called nested spaces where home staging and design business and we serve the Greater Indianapolis area and work with a lot of realtors, builders, flippers, and we help stage their listings so that they sell quicker and for top dollar. And then we also do design work with homeowners who are looking to update their spaces, whether it's flooring, paint colors, furniture, window treatments, we kind of do it all. So that's a little bit about nested spaces.

Speaker3: [00:04:38] Yeah, I love. I mean, I think I should live in a nested space, by the way, because every time I see all the fixtures, it's like we all should. We all should. All right.

Speaker4: [00:04:47] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: [00:04:50] So, OK. So when we first met and we first started thinking about coaching. Mm hmm. What do you think was going on in your brain that said, huh, I think I might need this. What was happening? Where were you in your business and in life, actually?

Speaker4: [00:05:08] Yeah. So you know, this is the end of twenty twenty one. So we're still kind of in the pandemic. Yeah, we all have a little pandemic fatigue. I have four young kids. My husband travels at least two days every week and then I own this business and I have a team of four people that work for me and help me make it run smoothly. And I immediately knew I needed to stop feeling like I had to be and all the places all the time and to get some like systems in place so that that could happen and that I could actually be the owner of the business and work on the business, not in it all the time.

Speaker3: [00:06:00] Yeah. So think about that like working on the business versus in the business. And when you say all the places, I mean, she is not joking people. There are a lot like because your business is all about being in a different house. A it was all about houses, being in different houses, whether you're staging or designing, right? So there's a lot of places to go.

Speaker4: [00:06:19] Yeah, we're meeting clients, you know, at their properties, at their listings, and it really is all over Indianapolis. So yes, all the places. And then, you know, in addition to that, it's like picking up the kids from school or, you know, what activities do they have? So feeling all over, literally feeling all over the place?

Speaker3: [00:06:43] Yeah, I'm going to ask you, how did that all feel? So it felt

Speaker4: [00:06:46] I knew that it was not a sustainable plan. Mm hmm. And so when we talked initially, I thought, OK, she can help me figure out like, what does business look like going forward? What to what do I want out of things? Instead of being, I felt like I was a little bit like on automatic pilot. You know, just like trying to get all the things done, what is important to be at and what can be done? Relegated or hired out, I mean, even with like sitters, people that help with the kids or the house and then thinking about, OK, who are my leaders on my team, what can they be doing that they're not currently doing and then don't need to hire some like experts, you know, some like subject matter experts that can help me in these other areas?

Speaker3: [00:07:46] Yeah, because you were trying to do all of it. Yeah.

Speaker4: [00:07:51] And yet it gave me no margin. To even, like take a step back and think about what life could be like personal and business. And so that's why it's important to hire out, even if you don't feel like totally ready, right?

Speaker3: [00:08:12] Do you ever feel totally ready? That's a great that's the best question. No one ever feels totally ready. But creating that space or that margin in your really in business and in life, right, is super powerful because once we started to even just, I think, coaching in and of itself and you mentioned this a couple of times, even just having those coaching sessions on the books was creating margin for you to think. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And then in those, we figured out ways where you could have more time by hiring out, right?

Speaker4: [00:08:47] Yeah, it was forced time to sit and think about. The business and talk with you, you know, as a third party who's not in the business, but you kind of you have another lens you're viewing it with and can guide. And so that was, I don't know, that was just really valuable to be able to have. You as a third party to lean on and be like, OK, this is what I'm seeing, this is what I'm I'm feeling, how do we create some positive change? In these different areas.

Speaker3: [00:09:28] So, OK, so I think it would be fair to say, you tell me if I'm wrong, that it was feeling a little chaotic. Yes, right? It was chaotic and. It also felt like when you were making decisions, you were kind of just making decisions on the fly based on what your gut was telling you now, there's nothing wrong with our gut, right? Like our gut instincts. But you weren't making decisions based on data or processes or that, like you said before where you wanted this business to go, it was all kind of in the moment.

Speaker4: [00:10:05] Yeah, yep. So I think a lot of women are really tuned into like their their gut feelings, right? And if we I think listening to them is really important. But I also and I also think like exploring those feelings and getting curious about them is even more important. So instead of just being like, OK, this feels right in the moment, maybe like instead of making that decision immediately sitting and saying, OK, why does this feel right? Like, Am I using data? You know, we we looked at like data from QuickBooks, right? Mm hmm. You're like, OK, so what? Why does this feel right? And then as we dug into that, we looked at the data from QuickBooks or even, you know, payrolls and invoices. I mean, the insights you're getting from any of your like digital platforms. All of that is super relevant. And then you can use your gut to make a decision, but use like the data or information, you have to have confidence about the decision that you make.

Speaker3: [00:11:18] Yes. Were you or are you looking at the data before?

Speaker4: [00:11:23] Not previously. It was a lot of like gut reactions, I guess. Yeah, because feeling like I didn't have the margin to sit down and think through.

Speaker3: [00:11:33] Yes, right? So because you're like, Well, that's just going to be another extra step. Like, why not even look at this? And I think a lot of business owners get scared looking at the data because then you feel like you're going to see something that maybe you don't even want to see.

Speaker4: [00:11:47] Well, yeah, I mean, I told you so. Andrea also helped me find a CPA that has been amazing. But you know, when we were talking, I said, looking at the numbers, both like kind of looking at a test grade.

Speaker3: [00:12:05] Yes.

Speaker4: [00:12:07] You pass or you fail. And really, the data is just an opportunity to evaluate where you're at with the business. And it's not your good or your bad or your business is good or you're bad or it's bad. It's just an opportunity for you to sit back, look at the numbers and then decide next steps moving forward. And it doesn't. You don't have to label the numbers as anything. It's just a benchmark or a metric. They they don't they're not tied to your self-worth. They're not tied to. If you're a good business owner or not, they just help you navigate the next steps.

Speaker3: [00:12:49] Mm hmm. And I think when we looked at some of your numbers and we realized where most of your revenue was coming from. That also gave you kind of power to say, OK, well, maybe I want to do more of that, seeing that that seems like like, let me stop worrying about the little stuff, the little the little dribs and drabs of revenue that are coming in. Let's focus on like the big drivers of revenue, not the little drivers. And then even doing that, it gave you some space.

Speaker4: [00:13:21] Yeah. So what we did is we looked at sales year to date and we did like this 80 20 rule. And what we realized is that, you know, 80 percent of our business comes from like 20 percent of our customers. So why are we focusing on all of these smaller customers that aren't necessarily loyal to us and aren't necessarily helping us become more profitable? Why don't we put our focus into the customers that really value what we're doing and the services we're providing, and then focus our efforts on helping them grow, which will also help us grow and providing even a greater level of service. And that, for me, was hugely insightful because the the other customers that other, you know, however many customers, yeah, they were taking up a lot of time. Yes, but they weren't contributing. They were slightly contributing to our income. But it wasn't a profitable way to do business now.

Speaker3: [00:14:35] And they were taking they were taking a lot of time, energy and resources

Speaker4: [00:14:39] Like my spending a lot of time on those projects. Yes, yes.

Speaker3: [00:14:44] So the other thing I remember one time we talked about looking at numbers, one day you had a little freakout and you like this isn't why would you be doing this? Which day? Let's say there was one. There was several, but I'm thinking of one where we went through. You were just looking at what with the money in the bank accounts. That was the only number you were looking at. And then once we went through and started to look at, OK, well, what's revenue that you know you've already billed for that's coming in? What are current projects that are actually out there? What do you have on deck in the months to come? Once we started looking at a bigger picture, not just the number at the bottom, the bottom number in the bank account? Yeah, that was huge.

Speaker4: [00:15:31] Yes, because if you become really rigid and hyper focused on things which sometimes you have a tendency to do, if you don't like looking at the numbers, right? If you don't like looking at the data, it can be very like stressful. But if you can sit back and say these are just numbers, this is just a snapshot in time. And then you know what we ended up doing. I think as we look through like projections, yep, you know, we found another revenue stream we did. And so we're like working on fleshing that out and building that out. But it's already been a really awesome revenue stream for me that, you know, I wasn't considering before. So that is why it's important to look at the numbers and then to think through, where am I? Where do I want to be? And then what are the other options like? What's you know, what are the other potentials that I could be doing here with? Like, not a ton of effort?

Speaker3: [00:16:44] Right, right. So so increasing business without hustling. A lot of times there's hidden profits, hidden profits in your business that you don't even see or potential for more profit, that you just don't even see until you take a deeper look and not just look at one number or one snippet in time, like you said, Yeah, yeah, it's awful. It is so OK. So Whitney and I did lots of looking at data. We've done lots of looking at data. We also, I think another element, if you go back to P&G, if I'm just telling my listeners, if you go back to podcast fifty seven, you will see I did an episode on six key components of business, so data is one of them. Another thing Whitney and I have done a lot of work on are people, the people within her organization and actually her referral sources to those are that's kind of they're not people in her business, but they're crucial to her business. So. Ok, so let's think about this, how do we go through this process? We started out by doing an accountability chart, didn't we? Mm hmm. Yeah. Because I think as business owners, a lot of times we just look at the people we have and we try to craft positions that fit them. Yeah, it's not always beneficial for you as the business owner.

Speaker4: [00:18:07] Is it your business should serve you? You shouldn't be serving your business. And when you hire people, they should be working for the greater good of the business and contributing to it. You should not be feeling like you have to babysit. You should feel like you hand over parts of the business and there's going to be a transition period. But generally, you know, the leaders within your team are going to take whatever you've given them and they're going to like, you know, make gold out of it. They're going to figure out the other side of the rainbow and they're going to make the gold. And those are the people you want to keep and you want to grow and you want to develop and then the people that aren't getting it or require more. That's when you have to think about, OK, is this worth my time and effort? Could I could I hire somebody new or could I hire, you know, a subject matter expert in whatever area you're looking for and get it done easier? And like, for example, I have lead stagers and designers on my team, and those are the people I know. They can take a project and run with it. You know, they might ask me a few questions, but generally they like, had the game plan. I launched an e-book in November and I knew I needed like a subject matter expert to just like, help me look at, you know, Kindle publishing. What are the categories that I need? Or, you know, is the e-book format correct, et cetera, et cetera. So I hired somebody to help me with that, and it costs me only two hundred and fifty dollars like she looked at all the things website landing page, but it was well worth that time because I knew it was taken care of. If I would have asked somebody on my team to do it, they would have had to research how to, you know, they don't know. And as an entrepreneur, you wear many hats, but some hats you and your team shouldn't wear.

Speaker3: [00:20:18] So true you could because we could do everything. We could do everything. But there comes a point when doing everything is just not. I mean, not worth it. As a very big statement. It's you're not it's not worth your time, energy or money. And honestly, you're probably not even getting what you want because you're not the expert, right? Right. Mm hmm. So you have done a lot of hiring out now or finding the right people to do the right things. Ok, and then the people that are in your business now your your team members, what's changed about how you've set up your team members? Are you? Do they have more responsibility? Are they taking the lead? How did you get them to understand that?

Speaker4: [00:21:05] So I tried to create a really defined roles. I think you and I worked on after we did the accountability chart, we kind of mapped out like, who would be doing what what it would look like. And, you know, the requirements. And so that's. That was big, and then I mean, now I'm I'm doing more one on one with people, but not in a baby-sitting way. It's like, check in and then. And what we've created is more of a system that you know, requires accountability than. Then babysitting is the best word that comes to mind because I have four kids.

Speaker3: [00:21:53] A lot of babysitting, if we should be doing more

Speaker4: [00:21:57] Babysitting in your business. Right. And the answer is no. And I think a lot of women, because we're nurturers, yes. Want to make it work. We want to. But really, you're not valuing your time. If you're trying to make it work. So for some of the people that we elevated their role, I mean, it wasn't a good fit. It just wasn't a good fit. And so then, you know, throughout this process. You are like, OK, that didn't work, what's next? And really, as you go through the process, it doesn't have to be perfect. That's not the goal now. And it's not the goal to like, get it all right. The first time it's to start like throwing things at a dartboard and seeing what sticks and the stuff that sticks you keep. And then the stuff that doesn't stick, you try again. And I

Speaker3: [00:22:50] Think. What was interesting in this process is that you realized some of the people that you had actually wanted more than more responsibility or more leadership than you are giving them and some wanted less. Yes, right? It kind of went both ways. It wasn't like everybody balked or everybody complained. Some people were thrilled to have more. Yes, but trying to figure that out is really you being super honest about what you want them to be doing. First of all. So that's defining the roles and then giving them the opportunity to to answer back, actually giving them the space to say, OK, well, this is what I need from you. Is this something you want? Yeah. You, as the owner, have to kind of determine, do they get it? So there's get it, want it and have the capacity to do it? Yeah, right.

Speaker4: [00:23:43] Yep. And that's really, really important because you'll see like red flags or you'll see, OK, they're doing great and it's important to address those, I think, especially as like a small business owner where you're wanting to make, you know, you're wanting to make everything count, you want it to all be kind of moving forward. So it is important to ask yourself those three questions. Get it one Typekit and capable, right?

Speaker3: [00:24:15] Right. Do they have the capacity to do it? Like do they just have capable and capacity can kind of go either, but do they have the bandwidth to give you what you need? So for example, like I know you've hired some students in the past. Right? So do they have the capacity given all the other things going on in their lives to give you the time that you need, right? Or do they have the knowledge at their maybe young age to actually do what you need them to do?

Speaker4: [00:24:48] Right. And that's every person is going to be different. Yes, that you hire and honestly, you hire them and then you kind of see how it goes. I mean, you might know after the interview or whatnot or from references, but yeah, and then it's important to then set kind of expectations. Hey, I'm going to give you we're going to try this. I'm going to give you two weeks. And if that doesn't work, then we've got to move on to something else.

Speaker3: [00:25:16] Right. And you've gotten good at not letting things drag on. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because I think a lot of times business owners, we wait too long to address some of these people issues. And then once we do, we get mad at ourselves and say, Why did I wait so long? Why didn't I have this conversation or clarify these roles or really look like or look at my business? What's going to work for me in terms of people? We wait too long because we're again, like you said, women, especially we're nurturers. We don't want to hurt anyone's feelings or we know that maybe they're capable. I just need to give them a little more time or guidance, right?

Speaker4: [00:25:51] Or maybe they would be better in this role.

Speaker3: [00:25:54] Yeah.

Speaker4: [00:25:55] Like, you're trying to create the roles

Speaker3: [00:25:57] For them, right? Yeah.

Speaker4: [00:25:59] And really? And once you've seen something, you should not and cannot unsee it.

Speaker3: [00:26:08] Oh, that's interesting. Tell me what you mean by that. I like that once

Speaker4: [00:26:11] You see, you know, like once you see something that. Either from the data perspective or from a people perspective. You know that. It's right there, it's right there for you to see, right, yes. So I'm always kind of taking inventory of things like, Oh, that's interesting. Oh, that's really good or, oh, you know, I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to think about this one and then make a decision about it or talk directly to that person. Yeah.

Speaker3: [00:26:44] Mm hmm. Yes, that's that. Once you see it, you can't not see it. That's so true. So true. Ok. So we had data. We had people. Ok, let's talk about vision, OK? When we started, I actually go back and see what you wrote as your what you wanted your vision to be for your business. You're very curious about that. But now I think we've really fleshed out what you want the vision to be. Mm hmm. Right. Yeah.

Speaker4: [00:27:15] I mean, so this is all part. This part is part of the vision, the veto. The vision action organizer we've been doing, which is like a shoot off of Gino Wickman iOS book as it is.

Speaker3: [00:27:29] Yes. Yes.

Speaker4: [00:27:31] Yeah, I mean, really for me. One of the biggest things that you and I kept talking about is that I want a business that like that flows and feels effortless in a way. And that delivers a really high quality product to our clients. And that is profitable.

Speaker3: [00:27:55] So all those things?

Speaker4: [00:27:59] Yeah. But the ease and flow is big because I want to have systems in place and people that are working for me that are creative so that this all kind of comes together seamlessly. And what we're doing doesn't matter if it's not profitable. A lot of creatives get in the trap of, well, making really beautiful spaces. That's great. But none of that matters if you're not paying yourself, if you are not creating a profitable business. So, you know, now now that profitability is even more front and center for me, I asked myself before we do an install, our review numbers OK, what did we charge? How much time is it going to take? Does this make sense for us before we invest in like new furniture? I mean, that's a big question for me. And we're still working, Andrea, on like forecasting things because that was something I hadn't done before. So typically we'll get these new shipments every quarter. But does it make sense to get them? Did we forecast correctly for them? So those are all really, I don't know, important things that are part of the vision for the company. I mean, they all kind of feed into it.

Speaker3: [00:29:23] I think that word, the words flow and effortless. I can hear myself saying to you, like, does that sound effortless? Yeah. No, that doesn't sound effortless. Or is this creating? Is this part of a business that. That is that that does flow like if things are starting to feel hard, then it's not feeling like it flows or it's effortless, right? Right. So we've been trying to make decisions that align with that vision. Also, I think this is a good time to mention that part of your vision for your business definitely has. There's a personal part of that because your business has to integrate in with your other hats you're wearing as mom and spouse and daughter and all those other things. Right. So I don't think we realize a lot. We don't we don't take the time to think about how the business impacts our personal life or how our personal life is impacting our business. And I think when we look at have a bigger vision of what maybe a five or three year picture looks like, right, then that's a great place to have it all integrate.

Speaker4: [00:30:35] Yeah, yeah. I mean, part of women's gut feeling about Jesus, does this feel good? Does this feel like too much? Does this fit with all the other parts of my, my life and I was seeing a therapist a few years ago? I'm still seeing one, by the way, but I was seeing a different one, and she was talking about how women's brains are like spaghetti. You know, it all kind of. It's like the sauce and the meat and the noodles. They're all connected. Whereas men's brains are more like like waffles, a waffle maker, they're all,

Speaker3: [00:31:12] Well, squared.

Speaker4: [00:31:13] Yeah. And so. For us, it has to feel good, like in every area of our lives, and for me, I mean, that's being able to kind of like shut it off on the weekends. Shut it off. In the evenings and when Steve is out of town and my husband's out of town traveling, I know that I want to be more present with the kids when he's gone. And so my days are shorter on those days. And that is OK. There's no. Um, I I initially I felt a little bad about it, but I'm like, this is my business and it needs to work for me and my family. If it's not, then you know, what's the point exactly?

Speaker3: [00:32:01] If it's not working for you in your family, then what is the point, right? Because that, again, that just doesn't feel good. And then that's when we start to doubt about whether or not we should even be in the business. Or maybe it would be easier just to go work for someone else, right? But that thought crosses everybody's minds. But you can. So then I guess this goes back to where do you need help and support, right? So you spent a lot of time talking about this, both personally and professionally.

Speaker4: [00:32:30] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker3: [00:32:32] Yeah. And it's OK to have the support.

Speaker4: [00:32:34] Yeah, for me. Well, when we first met after the pandemic, my twins were not sleeping. I don't know what happened, but we'll just call it the pandemic will blame it on the pandemic. And so we, you know, and every time we talked, I was like, I'm I'm up. These kids are not sleeping. And I said I talked to a sleep coach. I'm not sure. And you're like, You have talked to me about this three times, like, why are you not hiring or are you not hiring them to help you? And I was like, I don't know. I don't know if my husband's on board and you're like, You're the one suffering like, he's not. You can you can make, you know, you can make this decision. And that was like really empowering for me to hear that, hey, you're not always going to agree with your partner on what things you're going to invest in for your business or yourself. But it is important to have a voice and to know what your needs are. Mm hmm. I mean, for me, that was huge. So the sleep coach really, really helped me. It was horrible two weeks, but help me get the twins on a better sleep schedule and then like school started and I realized we need help in the evenings as well, especially if Steve is traveling. And so this could be for even like a stay at home mom because she's managing the house. It can be for people who are working. Do the things that you like need to do for, you know what you need and. Follow through on those things, don't just like don't become a martyr for. Your kids or your business, you know?

Speaker3: [00:34:30] So it's interesting because like you just said, do what you need for you because no one, no one's a mind reader, right? We all think people should be mind readers and this goes personally and professionally. So in a personal sense, like did Steve really understand when he was traveling all those days how tired you were? I mean, he could imagine it. I'm going to give him credit. He could imagine it, but he wasn't living it right. It wasn't living right. So why were we relying on him to decide whether or not we needed help with sleep? It goes kind of the same way. If you think about it in your business, how can you expect your team members or your employees to really know what you need from them or what? What you what you want this business to look like in the future unless we tell them like they're not mind readers either. Right, right, right. Right. So we've really got to kind of be bold in, first of all, just defining what we need because I think sometimes we don't even take we don't pause long enough to figure that out, right? And then asking for it.

Speaker4: [00:35:33] Yeah. And your needs can change from season to season, and that's absolutely OK. Personally and professionally,

Speaker3: [00:35:42] Yes, they can always be changing, and you don't have to apologize for that either or justify it or justify it. So, OK, so having that vision is super important. Mm hmm. So data, people vision, OK, tell me the next thing, then we'll wrap up because this is you don't want people only have so long to listen, right? Tell me about. Traction, like where do you see your business going or how did you how have you started to create some traction? Because now this sort of has to go. A lot of what we did was backend kind of stuff. Yeah. Because that has to kind of get a grip on things right? Traction element almost puts it in the forefront and is more of a front word facing kind of motion. Mm hmm. Where do you see yourself getting that movement?

Speaker4: [00:36:38] I mean, I've seen it like in the last, you know, the last few quarters where we talked about, Hey, there's this new revenue stream, right? And opening up to the possibilities of what you already have that can be monetized, for example. Yes, I think that's really important. But bigger picture like laying out what the goals are to your team and getting everybody on board and having everybody know what their part is

Speaker3: [00:37:10] To keep

Speaker4: [00:37:10] Things moving forward. That's been really big for me and for I think the team, hey, these are the goals. Let's let's make sure we're hitting these numbers and reviewing these at our weekly team meetings, for example.

Speaker3: [00:37:25] And I think breaking those goals down into what can I do in the next 90 days to move towards that goal, right?

Speaker4: [00:37:35] Yeah. So like the rocks? Yes. And then the issue list, which is part of the veto, are they're hard to create. I mean, at first it feels like it's a lot. But then once you have your list, it's like if you haven't done it to do list in a really long time and then you start writing the things down, it feels a lot like a lot. But the beautiful thing about this is once you get it down, you can literally track what your progress is and you can hold it off till the next quarter or finish it this quarter, depending on what the priorities are, right?

Speaker3: [00:38:14] I think you're like it does feel heavy as you start this process. Like, you're like slogging through some mud. Yeah, but you do get momentum. If you continue continually refer back to what the goals are and what you're supposed to be working on in that quarter. And I think that was hard for us to get to go through, like, what can you reasonably accomplish in 90 days, right?

Speaker4: [00:38:39] Well, and I think the reason I felt overwhelmed is because I had I wasn't focusing on the right things. I was focusing on everything.

Speaker3: [00:38:47] Yes, right?

Speaker4: [00:38:49] So then I felt like I was never getting ahead on anything but with having this like rocks list and this issues list and we even have like goals for the year. It's right there on paper. It's in black and white. And what I love about the rocks is that you can assign it. It's not all on you, you can assign it to others and they help row the boat, you know? So that you're not rowing alone. And that is a very powerful concept.

Speaker3: [00:39:24] Yes, you are not rowing alone, are you? Yeah, yeah. So good. Well, this has been super fun, and I'm happy that you're not rowing alone any longer. The boat is floating. It's actually moving down the river and not the river of misery after misery. It's a flowing river. It's flowing. This is so funny all these analogies, but I think you have kind of gotten to the point where you have that feeling. And now it feels pretty powerful, doesn't it?

Speaker4: [00:39:52] Yeah. And it all starts with like mindset. It all starts up here and then, you know, you get it on the on paper and then you implement and so. The power of, you know, your mind and using it for good and is is super powerful, and I think we all have a lot more power than we realize and a lot more. More of a voice than we realize, you know, and so it's important for us to sit down. And if we're frustrated about something to think through, how how can I change that? What what would what would improving it look like?

Speaker3: [00:40:40] Yes. What would it look like if we were to change this and make it better? What would that look like and how would it feel? Yeah. And a lot of times, until you get something on paper and start to empty out your brain, you don't even know that that's even a possibility or a question. Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you so much. I've loved this conversation. And if you are out there listening and thinking I would love to focus on the right things and not on everything, then I can help you go through this process just like Whitney and I have done. And it's been fun. I think parts of it have been scary, right? Parts of it have been hard. Parts have felt heavy and not very flowing, but it is kind of fun.

Speaker4: [00:41:25] It was fun because part of this veto is like dreaming about what the future entails, what it could look like, and there is a lot of like playfulness and fun in that.

Speaker3: [00:41:37] So Whitney, if the listeners wanted to learn more about you and nested spaces, what is the best way for them to contact you? And do you have anything new on your website that you offer?

Speaker4: [00:41:50] Yeah, yeah. So Nested Spaces is the website and we talk about all of our services, home staging and design, and there's also our e-book is available for sale, so that's on the website as well. Check it out and then if you're into social. Check us out on Facebook or Instagram and the handle is at nested spaces.

Speaker3: [00:42:16] Some of the pictures on social are very inspiring. I will tell you, you all are going to want new houses after looking at them so super. And check out the e-book too, because I have checked it out and I think it has something in there for everyone, even if you're not into staging. So thank you so much. All right, my friends, I will see you next week. Remember, this is the time to level up, level up yourself, level up your business. And if you want help doing that, feel free to direct. Message me. Reach out via the website. Schedule a call and we can figure out what that might look like for you as a person and for your business so you two can have flow and make things effortless. Focusing on the right things versus everything is the key. Have a great week. Isn't it interesting

Speaker2: [00:43:12] What changes when you start to focus on one thing, not everything, when you start to focus on the right things, not everything, it can create so much growth within your business, growth for you as a business owner, but also literal growth in revenue in the number of people you service in all aspects of business. And that trickles down into growth at home and just how you show up in life. If this is something that you need, if and you need support to make it happen, and I think everybody does. Go to my website and apply for a call. We will hop on the phone and figure out what you need in order to create your own runway to freedom in 2022. This is some of the most powerful work I do, and the results are forever results. Look forward to chatting until next week. It's always time to level up.

Speaker1: [00:44:32] Thanks for listening to the Time to Level Up podcast with me, your host, Andrea Libros. If you know someone who could benefit from listening to this episode, I encourage you to take a screenshot and share it with them. Ok, now what about you? You've listened to the podcast, and if you now know that you're ready to upgrade your life, upgrade your business, upgrade, you then stop being only a listener and start being a liver living. That upgraded life. Head over to my website and schedule a call right there on that call. We'll start changing the way you think and act so that you can have the freedom to achieve the impossible in life and business and have the resources to do it. You deserve an upgrade. Let's do it.