Blog - Page 5 of 108 - Tara Swiger

284: You have more than enough time

You have more than enough time. Yeah, I know, it feels like you don’t have any time. But today we’re going to talk about why you believe that and how you can change it.

Today we’re going right into tough love territory

I know it feels like there's never enough time. With kids and work and starting your business, it can all be super-overwhelming. Since becoming a parent, I have learned that it can be shockingly hard to even find time to take a shower. I get that.

You believe you don’t have time because it FEELS like you don’t…

You don’t have time to work on your business.
You don’t have time to invest in learning how to make your business profitable.
You don’t have time for marketing.

You believe you don’t have time because:

You haven't already made time for it.
You have never done anything like building a business before – so how could you possibly have time for it?
You may not know anyone who is doing it. In fact, everyone around you is probably saying they don't have time to do anything.

But are you them? Do you spend your time in EXACTLY the same way?
Surely you know people who tell you they don’t have time to cook, but maybe you always do find time. Or you have friends who don’t have time to read, but you do find time.

You are not them and that is why you can find the time, even if they can’t.

You’re right, you want to be realistic and honest with yourself.

But let’s also be honest with yourself about the reality:
You KNOW you don't have more time than anyone else. You KNOW don't have time to waste.
Your belief that you don’t have enough time is distracting you from seeing the time you do have, and using it effectively.

Is it true that no one, in your exact situation, has never found the time to build their business? No, of course not. We both can think of dozens of examples of women who have.

And hey, kids aren't the only thing that make you busy. When I started my business, I worked 40+ hours per week at two jobs, I managed a paint-your-own-pottery studio and worked at the local yarn shop.

When I built my business, I worked as a barista 40 hours a week AND as an office temp 40 hours a week.

And when my business grew to the point I quit my job, I was working 40 hours a week AND taking MBA classes during the evenings.

But, I can hear you, Tara, you didn’t have children back then!

Are you a mom with toddlers? So was Susan of Freshly Picked when she started her baby shoe empire.

Are you a homeschooling mom? So is Katie of Yarn Love and she’s built a six figure yarn business while homeschooling her five kids.

Yes, if you give time to this, to learning and growing, you will be balancing a lot. But balancing a growing business and your life (whether it's a dayjob or kids or whatever) isn't too hard. Having your entire money situation tied to one single employer is to hard.

Wasting the time you spend on your business doing the WRONG things in your business is hard and painful.

But here’s the thing: YOU are in the BEST position to find the time for this. Yes, YOU. Why? Because you are a creative. That means you’re a great problem solver, you can hold lots of stuff in your head at once. You are willing and open to learn (you’re listening to this podcast right now). YOU want more for your business and your life.

That is the PERFECT person who will FIND the time to grow their business. That is the person who will find the time to learn and build healthy foundations.

And hey, maybe you don’t feel like that person. Maybe you don’t feel like you’ve lived up to that potential, and that’s why you are SURE you don’t have enough time to work a program dedicated to growing your business.

But there’s another way to look at it: You don't need more time, you need more focus. You need more follow-through. You didn’t do it before, not because you didn’t have the time, but because you didn’t have the follow-through.

But what if you committed to following through? What if you found resources that helped you follow-through, that took into account your personality and provided the accountability and support you needed?

Could you do it then?

What if you knew that you could learn a few new tools and it would shift how time worked for you and how capable you are of following through?

Here’s a way to shift time:

List all the steps in any project on paper (don’t keep it in your head)
Break it down. Then break it down even more than that.
PICK ONE PRIORITY. Each week, each day, each hour. JUST ONE.

If you did this, how would impact your year? Your family over the next five years?

What would you be teaching the people around you about what was possible for them? About how they could approach time?

If you don’t change this belief that you don’t have enough time for learning and being effective, how will that impact those around you? How will you see that play out in the next year or five years or decades?

What’s going to happen if you don’t change?

Things are going to stay the same.

You will hear your kids and your friends adopt this belief. They will think they don’t have time to invest in themselves, to follow their dreams, to put in the effort to improve and get better – whether it’s related to business, to practicing the violin, to putting in effort to learn a new art form or medicine or whatever they’re into.

Do you want to keep operating like this, or are you ready to make the time for growing your business, for learning and improving?

If you’re ready to let go of the belief then come tell me over on Instagram and then join me to learn more about the foundations of your business at TaraSwiger.com/foundations

‘If you believe you don't have time, you won't find the time.' What a great takeaway!

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How to listen

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You can listen to it using the player above or download it.
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Are you a redshirt or a Captain? // Weekly Vlog

Do you feel distracted or overwhelmed? Let's get clear on what your business needs to grow.

Note: This was first live on FB at http://fb.com/taraswigerpage. Follow me there for more lives this week!

In today's video:
*What it's like to be the Captain of your own dream
*How to avoid the RedShirt Effect
*The mindset shift you need to make before your business will grow.
*What is holding you back.

Get the free Kit: https://taraswiger.com/distraction
⭐️⭐️⭐️

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283: How to make time to APPLY what you learn

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You have just read a great business book, or attended a workshop or joined an online class… but how do you get your investment out of it? How do you APPLY what you’ve learned? How do you make sure that it makes a difference in your business and your life?

Today I’m answering a question a Starship Captain recently asked after she read a great book – how do I APPLY this to my business?

You see, I’ve thought a LOT about how to make business education and information applicable. I’ve built it into my courses and program, so that as you work through the Starship Program, you are prompted to work WITH it in real time. We do this through apply-it-to-YOUR-biz worksheets, weekly accountability, chunking the content into pieces, and pacing it so that you work on it in an order that makes sense.

You can learn about how I structure it and WHAT you need to apply to your business in my free masterclass, the Four Foundation Method. Join me at TaraSwiger.com/foundations

Go Slow

One of the mistakes we ALL make is that we get excited and we rush through collecting information and data. I am a big believer that you can absorb a lot more than you think, and you’ll have access to it when you need it again, so I’m never afraid of forgetting something I learned in a book (this may be a quirk of my own brain. If you need to do something else to cement in your brain, like taking notes, you should do that!).

But remembering a fact is very different than using a fact to create real change. When you want to create a transformation in your business, you’ve got to pay deeper attention than just a quick read. You need to stop and think. You need to take notes or put action steps in your planner.

This is going to seem obvious, but one of the easiest ways to make use of a book or a class is to actually DO the exercises. I know, right? But I know you skip the exercises at the end of the chapter, just like I do! That’s fine if you’re reading a book just for general knowledge or to get an overview of the topic… but if you picked the book up because you want something to change in your business, you need to actually think and work through it. Don’t just speed through.

Dedicate the time it deserves.

Set aside the time

Ok, ok, so you’re going to go slow, you’re going to do the exercises or homework… but who has time for that?

Well, if it’s important to you, if it’s a priority, you do.

We’re going to talk about this more next week on the podcast, but if this is a priority, you need to set aside the time.

You probably know this, but be honest – when you pick up a business book or buy a course do you first stop and ask yourself when you are going to apply it? Probably not, but then we get annoyed when it doesn’t get read and we don’t see a change in our business.

This is a good time to tell you – nothing will make a difference in your business unless you commit to taking action and taking time for it. I was recently told that if the Starship comes with a guarantee that everyone will make a living from your craft, this person would absolutely join.

Well, yeah.

But honey, I can’t guarantee that you will make a living from your craft, because I can’t guarantee YOU will do the work, or that you will even open the lessons and read them, let alone do the homework, let alone make the changes you’ll need to make to have a profitable business.

No one can guarantee your success except for YOU.

Allow for failure (and experimentation)

Here’s the thing: when you try new stuff, it’s not always going to get the results you want. You are going to try things and they’ll fail. This has to be built into how you think about business or you’ll never move forward. If you’re waiting for the perfect piece of advice… you’re going to wait for a long time.

I used to call this the special-snowflake syndrome, but that phrase got politicized, so now I’m calling it the Unique Paradox. This is when every student tells me their business is unique and this doesn’t apply to them. But hon, if every business is unique, then there is no point in you learning any business advice. You know that there are foundations you can apply to your business, foundations that work whether you have a product-based business, a service-based business, whether you sell $4 PDFs or $100 earrings… right?

But you won’t always know exactly how to apply it to work for you, so you’re going to need to open to experimentation, to try, to fail, to try something new.

Often when you apply a new concept to your business, you need to build in time to reassess – is it the concept or the application that’s not working? Can I try it in a different way?

And hey, this is why I build in monthly reassessment into the Starship. Because you have GOT to stop and check in, to see if you’re headed towards your goals or away from them. You’ve got to learn the lessons your business is trying to teach you.

Ask yourself (over and over) : How can I make use of this? What part of this is applicable to MY business, today?

Yes, there are going to be parts of every book or course that don’t pertain to you right now. Maybe it’s something that you will need in the future. Maybe it’s something you’ve already figured out. The key to making it applicable now, is to ignore that and look at what you really can use.

I know this can be hard sometimes. When I first started my first business (making handspun yarn and selling it on Etsy) all the advice I could find about selling in an online shop was for coaches, yoga teachers, skeezy guys selling “internet marketing.” NONE of it applied to my business, but I started to look at the basics of what they were saying – know your goals, know your customers, know your product, know your numbers… and I started implementing that in my business and it worked!

But what I learned as I quit my dayjob and talked to more and more makers about our businesses is that not everyone has an easy time seeing the foundational concepts and breaking it down into do-able action. That is a strength that seems obvious and easy to me, but it isn’t everyone else’s strength. So I started helping makers improve their marketing, finding the direction for their business (and life!) and get more profitable.

But I want you to know – if it’s hard for you to translate concepts from another industry-language or from old-school business terms, that’s ok! There’s nothing wrong with you! You don’t need an MBA to have a successful business. You can work with someone that can help you translate! This is exactly what I do in my Foundations Masterclass (which is totally free) and what I try to do each week here on the podcast.

So if you’re having a hard time applying general business knowledge to YOUR direct business, I have a homework assignment, go sign up for one of the spots in my upcoming Foundations Masterclass at TaraSwiger.com/foundations.

It's always important to remember that taking the time to read a book is different than making the time to APPLY what you learn!

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How to listen

You can subscribe to it on iTunes (If you do, leave a review!)
You can listen to it using the player above or download it.
Subscribe or listen via Stitcher (or subscribe in whatever you use for podcasts – just search “Explore Your Enthusiasm” and it should pop up!).

Find all the podcast episodes here.

Baking with Toddlers // Weekly Vlog

This weekend we got to bake with our current foster girls AND our former kiddo. We baked, we painted and when we had a day alone, we went to Asheville – Laughing Seed (a great vegan restaurant), Purls Yarn Emporium (fave yarn shop) and Malaprops, my closest indie book store.

What did you do this weekend?

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282: Get your shop ready for the holidays

Happy Holidays!

Ok, so I just filled your heart with dread, didn’t I?! If you are a shopper, it’s annoying to see ANY holiday stuff months before the holiday begins, it’s like Live in the NOW, man!… but if you own and run a shop, it is VITAL to plan for your holiday season… starting right about now.

This week I am going to help you make a PLAN for getting everything out of the holiday season that you want to! We’re going to set a goal, creating a vision for what you want out of the season, then we are going to talk about math (very briefly!) and marketing.

This can be your most profitable time of year, but so that it can be your most peaceful time of year! Or at the very least, not absolutely miserable! Your holiday season may start now, or American Thanksgiving and go through the last night of Hanukkah, or New Year’s Day, or all the way through the Epiphany.

Sidenote: I wrote this whole episode and then realized that these steps are exactly what I guide your WHOLE business through in my free masterclass. If you want to go a LOT deeper, check it out at taraswiger.com/foundations.

Let’s dive in!

Your Goal

The first step to creating ANYTHING you want, and especially something with as many moving parts as your holiday season, is to set a goal or cast a vision, what do you want to get out of this season? What do you need to do, and by when?

Let’s get more specific:

How much do you want to make in sales?

What activities and events do you want to do this holiday season?
(This may be everything from a big holiday show, to offering a Thanksgiving custom order, to buying a new menorah, to cutting down a Christmas tree. List it ALL out.)

What deadlines do you have?
Shipping deadlines:
Shopping deadlines:
Event deadlines:
Other deadlines:

What isn’t on this list but is important for you to do or experience this season?

Now for the most important question: How do you want to FEEL?

Math

The next step is to look at the actual math – calendar math and profit math. The calendar math is pretty straight forward – put all of the dates on your calendar AND put all the deadlines. Now put a star on your list of all the things that are going to take more than 1-2 hours. (You need bigger chunks of time for these things).

Now you have to switch to profit math before we come back to calendar math.

Look at your sales goal – how much money do you want to make (monthly or over the two months, either answer is fine)?

Now, with your current overhead and at the profit margin of each item, how many items will you need to sell to hit this number? (Don’t know your overhead or profit margin? You need the Foundations – learn more at TaraSwiger.com/foundations.)

Once you know that number, you know how many things you need to sell! This is important because first, you need to HAVE this many items. I can’t believe how many shops want to make $1000/month but have less than $500 in stock. Now, if you’re a designer or you sell services, you can do the math – of the things I have for sale, how many of each will I need to sell, and you can skip right to marketing those things.

As a product seller, if you don’t have that many things in your shop, before you worry about marketing, you need to focus on production – MAKE enough stuff.
That’s where we come back to the calendar – how much stuff will you have for each show you have scheduled? How many items will you have by Black Friday or Cyber Monday? I recommend getting your shop STOCKED UP before American Thanksgiving, so you can focus on filling and shipping orders and enjoying your holiday.

Marketing Tip: Focusing on production doesn’t mean you don’t do any marketing, this is prime time to be showing the PROCESS. Show what your studio looks like! Show your pile of products ready for the holidays. Show the day to day of creating.

Back to the calendar – for you to have the amount of items you need by your deadlines, when will you make them? What days are production days? Set a realistic production schedule, including the fun stuff you want to do this holiday season (in other words, if you want to spend a day baking cookies, don’t plan to spend that day on production)

Stress Free Tip: If you’ve never had a production schedule before, you’re going to find that spending the time thinking about it NOW takes so much stress off the day to day.

Communicate

The key to meeting your holiday goals is communication – with your family, with your customers, and honesty with yourself!

Before we jump into business communication, you need to communicate with your family! What are their expectations from you? What do they want to do together? What are you letting go of?

Reminder: You have permission to let go of any holiday tradition that is not serving you.

And to adopt new ones that feel better. This will go smoother if you communicate with the other people involved!

If you need to be heavily into production for the next month, let your partner and friends know! Ask them for the support you’ll need in this time!

If you need to label items while you watch Elf with the kids, let them know! (If they don’t have sticky-cookie fingers, they can help!)

Whatever you need from the people in your life, let them know!

Of course this applies to your business too! It can be a real struggle to stay consistent with your marketing communication in busy seasons. But if you want increased sales, this is the time where you need to stay consistent.

How to balance it? Make a plan!

Decide what you’re going to say, when, and write it out ahead of time. Spend some time in early November writing some Instagram captions, sales emails, blog posts – however you communicate with your people, you can write it out ahead of time.

This is why we have already worked on the calendar – it will now tell you when shipping deadlines are – this is one of the most important things for you to communicate, several times, so your people (who are also busy and distracted) don’t miss it! Right now schedule when you’re going to send shipping deadline reminders (if you’re not sure what to do, announce it 2 weeks out, 1 week out, 2 days and final day. YES that many times!). You may have a shipping deadline for Christmas, one for the last night of Hannukah, or any other date that is important to your people. If you make your items to order, then your order-by date is going to be even earlier!

Once you’ve got your shipping and ordering deadline messages scheduled, look at any other event:

Are you going to be at a holiday show? Schedule your messages about that.
Are you doing a big Black Friday deal, go on and schedule your messages about that.
What else do you want to share about this holiday season?
Do you want to show your item in use during this season? Stage some photos and take them now.
Do you want to share your own holiday traditions? Schedule those posts.
Do you want to talk about your feelings around the holidays? Schedule that!
Do you have weekly content? Be sure to schedule time to point people back to that.

I know this sounds like a lot, but don’t get overwhelmed. The first step is to identify what you want to post when, the next step is to actually get it together (images and writing the words) and the final step is to schedule it (using a tool like Later for Instagram/Facebook).

To be honest, I plan a month or two in advance, but I don’t get my content together until the week of, and for most of my business life, I haven’t scheduled things more than a week in advance. Now that I have toddlers and more chaos in my schedule, I’m needing to get a bit more ahead of it than that, so your particular scheduling cadence is going to be related to your particular life.

To recap, you’re going to get your shop ready for the holidays by: setting your goal and casting a vision for what you want the holidays to be like, doing profit and calendar math so you know you CAN make it the way you want it, and then communicating that to both your loved ones and your customers.

As a reminder, you can dive deeper into goals, profit and marketing plans in my free Masterclass, at TaraSwiger.com/foundations.

Love this reminder to get set up for a successful and stress free holiday season!

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How to listen

You can subscribe to it on iTunes (If you do, leave a review!)
You can listen to it using the player above or download it.
Subscribe or listen via Stitcher (or subscribe in whatever you use for podcasts – just search “Explore Your Enthusiasm” and it should pop up!).

Find all the podcast episodes here.

24 Hour Readathon // Weekly Vlog

It’s time to read for 24 hours! (Well, I slept, too!)
I read Big Sky by Kate Atkinson and The Girl with a Clock for a Heart by Peter Swanson.

What are you reading?

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281: How to invest in your business

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I recently made a big decision about an investment in my business. And I spent the last week talking to makers about how to know WHEN something is the right investment in their business business.

When I opened the Starship to new members last month, this is the question that most people have – how do I decide if this is the right investment for me, right now?

Our conversations have me reflecting on how I make these decisions in my own business, and how anyone knows that anything is the “right” for them. I have a few questions I ask myself before buying, whether it's a $25 guide or a $999 Program.

If you are ready to grow and expand your business, you are probably asking yourself – what do I invest in? Where do I spend my time and energy in order to make the biggest growth. Well I cover the ONLY 4 foundations that need your focus and attention my masterclass. You can join (for free!) at TaraSwiger.com/foundations.

So before we dive into investing your business, I have to be super clear, when you’re looking at investing your TIME in your business, you need that investment to be in one of the four areas I cover in that masterclass.

But when you’re looking at investing your MONEY in your business, how do you choose the class or book or program that’s going to be most effective for you, right now, exactly where you are?

I ask the same 3 questions of every investment (yes, I invest in my business too, so I can become the best help to YOU as possible!)

Do I know and like the person?

Does this person show up regularly and with integrity? Especially in a class, the way I feel about the person is going to impact my ability to learn. If you don't like who the teacher is, as a person, you're not going to trust the information they have and will spend time second-guessing everything. You learn better from someone you deeply trust. Also, if this is going to take longer than an hour, you want to like the person's voice and style, and look forward to spending time with them. (This is why it's so easy to buy from Caitlin, my mentor, or from your favorite yarn shops!)

Does it provide the structure that I need?

For me, this means something more than a simple PDF download. I learn best if the information is chunked up and delivered in pieces, and has some kind of accountability built in. The entire reason I joined Up & Running is that I needed a training plan and accountability on the regular.

But of course, not everyone learns in the same way, so this is something I've tested endlessly in the Starship. Sure, I've got AMAZING, life-changing education on profitability and marketing, but how can I share that information in a way that results in real changes for the captains?

The last 8 years of working with makers every day, has taught me that the best results come from a combination of weekly accountability check-ins, structured classes (everything you need, step by step), and targeted, deep-dive, apply-it-to-your-own business material, delivered in video, text and worksheets. The best format I’ve found is a combination of question-asking and accountability-providing. This not only teaches information, it also keeps the regular movement of your business from where it is to where you want it to go. It makes big goals more reach-able and dreams more do-able.

Does it fit with my immediate goals?

Is this thing aimed at what I'm working on right now? Even if the class has fantastic information, if it's not information I can use right now, I resist it.

Why? Because otherwise it will be a distraction from what I'm working on and I'll be frustrated that I can't put what I learned to work right away. (This is why we spend the first weeks in the Starship setting individual goals and mapping out a path – so that you spend your time in the Starship working on your goals and avoid distraction.)

Where will I find the time for it?

Here’s the truth – if you don’t see how this will fit with what matters to you, right now, you won’t find the time for it. The hard part of this is… we aren’t always honest with ourselves what really matters to us, what our priorities are. So we buy something we WISH were our priority, but honestly we’re putting our time and attention elsewhere.

So if you’re telling yourself “I don’t have time for this,” I want you to change it to “this isn’t a priority right now.” Can’t join a business-growth program? Maybe business growth isn’t your priority right now!

And hey, that’s OK. For the first month of a new foster care placement business growth IS NOT my priority. Getting the kiddo(s) settled and figuring out the structure of my life again and napping, those are my priorities. I know if I don’t focus on that, I won’t ever be able to focus on business growth later. Maybe for you it’s a big move or a new baby or a major illness? Just be honest with yourself, honey.

If you’re saying, “no no, Tara, I swear it IS a priority!” Then the question is – when will I find the time for it? Tough love time – if you can’t find the time for it, it’s not a priority.

Does it fit in my long-term vision?

Is this going to help me build the kind of business I want to own next year and the year after that? Or is this going to distract me by thinking about something short-term?

And the really hard question: Is this going to help me become the kind of person I want to be? Or encourage me to focus on being someone else?

This question is so hard to answer, but vital. There are super-compelling classes, books, and adventures that look fantastic. But if they don't promote my core values, or encourage me to be me, then I know they're not for me. Of course, the first step is to know what you value and define them, so that you can spot them (or their lack) in an offering. The values I look for in a class or book are personal responsibility (am the Captain of my ship), sustainability (valuing the long-term over the short-term, conserving resources), and self-knowledge (I can find success by embracing my quirkiness). This reflects my business ethics and ensures I spend my time in integrity.

These are the questions I ask myself before I invest in my business, and it’s what I’d like to invite you to ask yourself before you invest in anything for your business. If you’ve been thinking about prioritizing business growth and profitability, you can learn more about the 4 foundations Method of growing your business over at TaraSwiger.com/foundations.

What do you ask yourself before you buy a class or book?

Lemme know over on Instagram, in a comment or DM! Show me what you’re doing while listening, just tag me, @taraswiger and #exploreyourenthusiasm.

Have an enthusiastic week!

This list of questions to ask yourself before you invest in your biz is incredible!

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How to listen

You can subscribe to it on iTunes (If you do, leave a review!)
You can listen to it using the player above or download it.
Subscribe or listen via Stitcher (or subscribe in whatever you use for podcasts – just search “Explore Your Enthusiasm” and it should pop up!).

Find all the podcast episodes here.

280: Biz lessons from (foster) parenting

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So hey, I became a parent this year! I parented 5 kids in 12 months, not concurrently but consecutively. And in this year of parenthood, I have learned a LOT about myself, my worldview, my marriage AND my business.

Today I want to share what parenting has taught me about business.

This episode is ultra-vulnerable, because I usually talk about stuff that I know quite a bit about, that I’ve researched and experienced. Well, parenting is not really my expertise. And I’m gonna be honest – I wanted to be a parent for SO LONG that when it DID happen, but in a very nontraditional way, I still feel a little bit of imposter syndrome.

I am NOT a parent the way most parents are. I did not give birth or get pregnant. I also didn’t lose pregnancies or go through massive infertility treatments. And I haven’t adopted a child. So right now, I don’t actually, legally, HAVE kids. I temporarily have kids, but as you can imagine, the day to day of parenting feels very very real. Heck, it IS real.

I am having the experience of parenting even if I’m not legally a parent yet.

So, as you can tell, I feel kinda nervous about talking about this, but I know that we ALL have things we’re inexperienced about, and learning THROUGH the inexperience is how we improve.

Now before we go farther, let me just say to all my sisters who are feeling pain around not being a parent yet, and really really wanting to – you might wanna skip this episode. I know that in the past I found all KINDS of things triggered my grief, and I would HATE when a business teacher would talk about kids as if we all just had kids, no problem, no struggle.

That said, I encourage EVERYONE to consider foster care as a way of pouring your time and energy and resources and privileges into someone’s life. Someone very cute. So if you don’t have kids yet, and you’re even considering foster care a little bit, stay tuned and check out my videos about the process of becoming a foster parent.

And of course if you are a parent, through traditional or nontraditional methods, stay tuned because I think you’re going to enjoy noticing how business and parenting overlap in so many ways.

Work on your STUFF

The first BIG lesson of having a business or being a parent is this: If you don’t deal with your stuff now, you’re going to have to deal with it later.

Both parenting and business serve as a magnifying glass for all the STUFF you need to work through to move forward.

What do I mean by stuff? Whether it’s mental health stuff like anxiety, depression, eating disorders or it’s stuff from your own childhood or past relationships, both business and kids are going to bring it up again.

I have long said that business is one of the best therapists, because it is ALL going to come up. As you set goals, level up, move forward, you are going to come up against your own feelings of inadequacy, worthiness, confidence, mindset. If you don’t work through it, release it, or in some way transform your stuff, it’s going to KEEP coming up. You’ll end up self-sabotaging or getting stuck or feeling horrible instead of happy.

And oooh boy, if this is true of business, it is doubly true of becoming a parent.

Every bit of unhealed trauma, grief, and fear from your childhood comes and smacks you in the face when you’re taking care of tiny children. (Or is that just me?)

I got a head start on working through my stuff and develop a support system for it, while building my business. I had to work through stuff about being worthy, about mindset, about clear communication in order to grow through my business.

That has made me able to move through it quicker (than I used to) when it came to kids. But for my husband, he struggled. He’s had to develop ways to calm down, to recharge, to release stuff, to confront himself and forgive himself…while in the middle of parenting toddlers.

So really this first lesson is: work on your stuff. Now or later, you’re going to need to. If you had kids first, hopefully you’ve learned to identify some of this stuff and you’ve already started the process.

(And PS, business and kids aren’t the ONLY ways to work on your issues, they’ve just the two biggest triggers for what I’ve needed to work on! Relationships are another big trigger for people – whether friendships or romantic relationships.)

The next lesson is about TIME

Oh my gosh, I never felt like I had so little thinking time in my LIFE!

It has forced me to get very clear on when and how I work best – what I need to be most productive.

What I’ve learned is that I need dedicated focused time in order to do most of what I do.

And Introvert Recovery cannot be skipped – the longer I spend surrounded by kids and NOT working, the more I need to recover before I can be productive. This is counter-intuitive and VERY annoying, but I’ve found it to be true, so now I just try to build it in when I can.

My other “hack” around this is to squeeze all appointments into same day and have days that I never schedule anything kid-related (of course DCS does not really respect my boundaries, but when possible, I stand up for them.) It all comes down to the fact that time management is so much more crucial now that I have kids, so I’ve had to get better at it.

Communication

Dealing with toddlers requires clear communication.
Dealing with DCS and birth parents and other adults in your kids life requires clear communication.

And guess what? Your business, especially your marketing messaging requires clear communication!

One of the keys to clearly communicating is to always ask yourself: What is the goal of this communication?

What is the goal of this foster care meeting? What is the goal of this outburst? What is the goal of this Instagram post or email or item description?

You’re always trying to communicate something to someone.

By getting clear on what the goal is and who the intended audience is, then you can shape your message around that.

And yes, I am encouraging you to take a minute and think through what you’re about to say, so that it’s clear to everyone what your goal is.

If we’ve ever been in a conversation together, you know that I am not going to let you go until I know that we have met the goal. This has been so useful in working with birth parents and DCS.

For example, in a meeting with a social worker and some family members, I could tell that the worker was focused on just saying what she wanted to say (in industry-speak) and that family members didn’t understand the seriousness or what’s at stake. So I stopped the worker, over and over to ask: “So you’re saying….” and kept rewording it until I could tell family got it.
When we walked away, my husband said, “You were great. You probably really annoyed the social worker, but at least we know we got everyone on the same page.”

I credit my decade-plus experience of writing marketing messaging (and a stubborn streak that wants to make everyone feel included) to this skill, but it’s developed over time.

If you have been negotiating with toddlers, for a few years, I bet you have worked on your communication skills. (Simplicity! Clear requests!)

If you have been in a relationship for longer than a minute, you have worked on your communication skills.

The thing is, you can bring that INTO your business! Those skills translate!

ALL these skill translate!

Whether your life has inspired you to get good at working on your stuff, at time management, or at communication, you can now take those skills into your business!

Often we feel like we don’t know enough or we’re not good enough to create thriving businesses, to be profitable, to charge what we’re worth.

But you know what?

You are! You have the skills you need!

What a great reminder that parenting skills are often transferable to business!

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5 kids in 1 year – Foster Parent Lessons Learned // Weekly Vlog

We have learned a LOT in one year of foster parenting.
Today I’m diving deep into what we’ve gotten totally wrong, how we’ve navigated the system and how it’s impacted our marriage.

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279: How to survive social media burnout

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Are you DREADING logging on to IG? Has it been WEEKS since you posted to your Facebook page or group?

Honey, you are not alone. It is totally normal to get burnout, and this week I'm going to help you avoid it and deal with it when it happens, and I'm going to give you a dose of tough love!

Today's episode is brought to you by my darling patrons, you can join them in supporting the show, at Patron.com/Taraswiger, for as little as $1/mo.

It is sooo easy to get burnt out with social media. You feel like you have to be on all the things – Instagram, Facebook, groups, maybe even Twitter or Tumblr or YouTube depending on your Right Customer.

Not only do you need to CREATE for those platforms, you also have to INTERACT, comment, like, reply to comments and DMs…. ahhhh

It can get super overwhelming very quickly.

So let's first talk about how to AVOID overwhelm and then how we will deal with it when it happens.

To start with you need to accept one very big Truth: you don't have to be on everything. In fact, you CANNOT be on everything. Because, hon, you aren't going to be GOOD at everything, in fact, you won't be good at most stuff. AT FIRST.

How you get good, is practice and consistency, without expectation.

Now I know that “expectation” bit is hard, because why else would we be on social media as business owners if we didn't have the expectation that it would help our business?

The answer is counter-intuitive: Lower your expectations a little! (or a lot)

If you hop on a social media platform, there will be a learning curve, if your expectations of yourself and your results are sky high, you WILL be disappointed. If you look at the whole experiment as a chance to learn and get better, you will be delighted at the results.

Because here's the thing: even doing a social media platform “badly” is a chance to learn about your CUSTOMERS.

Because let's back up here, you're going to choose platforms based on two things:

What you like to do or want to do more of.
Where your customers are.

Now the thing about the big platforms (IG, FB, Twitter, YouTube) is that they are big enough now that no matter the demographic of your Right Person, if they're under 65, they're going to be there. (if your target market is over 65, why are you even stressing about this?)

So if you're choosing a platform based on what you like or want to do more of, you're going to have more FUN while you learn it.

And if your customers are there, because it's SOCIAL, you're going to have a chance to learn about them, even if you aren't particularly good at creating content for it yet. You can see what hashtags they use, who they follow, what they post about, what they like. You can have conversations in the comments of THEIR posts, or even the posts of a bigger creator.

(I originally had podcasting here, but it's broadcasting media, not social media, right now there isn't a podcasting platform that lets everyone (maker and consumer) talk to everyone).

If, instead of looking at it as a chance to talk to your customers, you look at is a way to boost sales quickly, well you're going to feel pressured and that leads to burnout.

Social Media is not a sales tool, it's a marketing tool, 98% of the time.

What's that mean? It's not IG where you'll make the sale. On IG you'll build the relationship and point your follower to where they can learn more or check out what's for sale. But for most of us, IG -> email -> sale. If you do in-person events, SM -> event -> sale.

I know, I know, so-and-so posts pictures of what's for sale and she sells it right away. But you know what? She's ALREADY used IG to do marketing (spreading the message of her work – the value, the worth, the work that goes into it) AND she's built trust. She's done this with enough people so that when she posts something, at least one of them wants to buy it. So yes, you can make sales right from social media, EVENTUALLY.

In the short term, it's a listening tool and a learning tool. You can use it to experiment with messaging (you get a new chance every day) and you can use it to have conversations.

You might have noticed that earlier I said you're going to get better at it by doing it consistently. Yes, the more consistent you are with any tool in your business, the better results you're going to have…but that's another cause of burnout – trying to stick to a schedule that doesn't work for you. If you are feeling ragged trying to post daily, what if you did it 3x/week? It's better to be consistent 3x/week than to post a lot one week and not at all the next week. You'll feel better about your work, so you'll stick with it longer.

So far we're avoiding burnout by doing what we like, by having conversations with our customers, by doing it less often and by lowering our expectations.

The other way to avoid burnout is to give yourself a break. Whether you choose to do it weekly (I don't pick up my phone on Sundays) or you choose to do it for a longer stretch of time (I stay off social media when I'm traveling with my family, to give myself a real vacation), just take some time AWAY.

What if you're already all burnt out?

First, step away.

Just stop. Seriously. Nothing bad will happen.

Second, find the fun.

Notice what feels good, what you have fun doing and do more of that. Maybe it's pictures of flowers, maybe it's funny memes, maybe it's videos about books, like it is for me. Dip your toe back in with what's fun.

Third, lower your expectations, yes, even more.

Social media cannot be your entire business (unless you're a social media consultant, and then why are you listening to this?). Social media is ONE way you can practice your messaging and build trust through consistency. Your business is your product, your pricing, your messaging, and your follow-through. I teach all about these foundations and how to make them stronger in my new masterclass. You can find out when the next encore presentation is at TaraSwiger.com/foundations

‘Social Media is not a sales tool, it's a marketing tool, 98% of the time.' Love this!

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How to listen

You can subscribe to it on iTunes (If you do, leave a review!)
You can listen to it using the player above or download it.
Subscribe or listen via Stitcher (or subscribe in whatever you use for podcasts – just search “Explore Your Enthusiasm” and it should pop up!).

Find all the podcast episodes here.

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