Pivot or Pause
Hey friend, I know it’s been awhile and this is quite the time to start our chats back up! The world is a dumpster fire but just because things are chaos out there, doesn’t mean they have to be chaos in here.
In this chat, we’re keeping it real by talking about how the Covid-19 virus may be impacting your family and business and how to handle it. I’m sharing what I’m doing in my house, how it compares to what I’m telling my students, and if you should pivot or pause right now.
The answers don’t change that often and in this episode I’m telling you how to weather this storm.
Thanks for hanging out with me today! I know your time is precious and I am so grateful you’re here week after week. Let me know what you’re doing now and what you have planned for after this storm settles down. Just send me a message on social!
(00:00):
Hey friend, you’re listening to The Nicole Walters Podcast. I’m a former six-figure corporate executive who woke up every morning feeling stuck in the life that I built for myself but using my corporate skills I took to the Internet and built a multi-seven-figure business, showing others how they can build a life they love. Now on this podcast, I share stories of being an entrepreneur, a mom to my three amazing girls and a wife to my crazy, cooky dancing Hubbin. I’ve had a couple of viral videos too. So you know there’s going to be a lot of laughs here. So whether you’ve seen me on my viral vids or on the Today Show or read about me in Forbes, this is the place where we can meet, share stories, share laughs, and share fun. I’m your best friend in your head. So sit back, listen close, and let’s get started.
(00:49):
Hey friend. Wow. It has been awhile and it is quite the doozy right now. What is happening in the world? I know that’s what you’re probably feeling and thinking like, Oh my gosh, things have just gotten haywire and I figured no better time for us to start chatting again then when there’s plenty to talk about. No, I do want to let you know this is our space to just chat. Keep it simple, keep it calm and not exactly rise to all the chaos that may be around us, whether that chaos is in our business or our family or in the world. But I also want you to know then I am going to keep it real with you. We’re not going to ignore the obvious. So what I want to do today is I want to talk about what’s happening. There is a crazy virus out there that is making everything go bananas and haywire.
(01:43):
And fortunately for a lot of us, it may not be in our home, but it doesn’t mean that we’re not feeling the impact in our life, our routine, in our family. So that’s what I want to do today. I want us to talk about the real deal and talk about how to handle it. I’ll let you know what we’re doing in our own home. And surprisingly enough, it’s not that different than what I’m telling my clients to do. The answers don’t change that often. What you need to do to weather this storm is pretty simple and I’m going to break it all down for you right now. So first things first, do you guys remember the before time, right before COVID times where we wore jeans and real shoes? Do you remember those days where we put on eyeliner and left the house? Today I even challenged myself to just get dressed because I could just get dressed cause I was looking at my kids and saying to myself, why do we even own clothes?
(02:41):
Like can we all just agree that leggings and yoga pants are perfectly acceptable all the time attire? That’s what we’ve come to. But I also want to let you know that it’s not going to be like this forever. I know that people are casually saying out there, as a spirit of reminder, everything will be okay. Everything will be okay, but I want to tell you in a very grounded way, this too will pass. After this we’re going to have to get back to the new normal, whatever that may be, but it’s not going to pass for anytime soon and we know that at least for now, we’re in the house with our family and for some of us were bunked up with friends or we’re by ourselves and we’re trying to figure out what to do in order to weather this time, and a lot of us are turning to social media now.
(03:30):
That’s a great thing because you know that I love that there are content creators. I love that everyone is jumping out there, sharing their messages and really trying to inspire and fill the void of us wondering what to do with ourselves. The only problem is some of that content is great and some of it’s not so great. Some of it actually only adds to the existing anxiety that we have going on right now. Am I right? You feel what I’m saying? Right friend. How many times do I need to be told launch your business today. Now’s your big chance. I told you so. I mean, look, my kid is over here screaming about homeschooling, yelling into a zoom call, running around the house like a maniac. I mean, I’m doing the best I can with what I got and until I can figure out how to manage this house, it feels like a lot to get that additional pressure of all the other things I should be doing with this time.
(04:28):
Friend, we’re the same. Right? I know for a fact that you never lacked for items to put on your to do list. Am I right? Your list already had tons on it. I know that the minute I found out I was going to be on quarantine, I was like time to tackle that closet. You remember that junk drawer? Oh my goodness. Now’s a great time to plant some new hedges around the fence. Yeah, landscaping. That’s where my brain went, so there’s no shortage of stuff I can do and I still manage a multimillion dollar business and I kept my entire team on during this time. We still have work to do. We have clients to serve, we have legacies to build, so there’s no shortage of stuff to do and I really don’t need anyone adding to that list, especially at a time when there’s so much happening in the world that can make you emotionally, feel drained. When you wake up, wondering if what you’re doing is enough to protect your family, to protect your legacy, to protect your business.
(05:23):
You really don’t need one more person in your ear telling you what to do. So I want to give you a different direction. Maybe a little shift in your thinking. Instead of feeling like you need to rebuild or start new, I just want you to decide if you need to pivot or if you need to pause. Because everyone’s telling us that now is the time to reevaluate, change, respond, leverage. But you know what? It’s okay to stay still. Actually, I wanted to let you know that that is sound corporate business strategy. Large organizations like Coca Cola and Microsoft, they’ve weathered economic changes. They’ve weathered political government and global crises. This is not new to them. Coca-Cola didn’t go and change their logo and their product just because a crisis broke out New Zealand, everything stayed the same. It is okay to stay still. Furthermore, you may be in a state of mourning and grieving.
(06:25):
Understand that what we used to know doesn’t exist anymore and we’re never going back to it. Whenever we do get past this thing and we will, we’re going to be entering a new normal. Things are going to be different and it’s okay for you to just want to handle the now and the now may mean prepping the house, getting it together, tackling some of that in home to do list, prepping the kids. My goodness, I don’t know how many of us have a knack for teaching, but we’re all teachers now, so we’re helping get that done. We have a whole new appreciation for lesson planning and for scheduling and for discipline and time management. Man, you teachers are heroes and we appreciate you more than ever. It’s time to prep the business. If you’re an entrepreneur and you’re out there and you found yourself jumping into this internet world and you skipped some steps, you’ve heard me say it before, even if you skip the steps, you’re going to have to come back to them and now is as good as time as any to get back to those steps.
(07:28):
Double down, commit to your craft, get better at what you do and tighten up the services you offer, but you don’t have to build something new. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Here’s the deal. If you’re in corporate America, you know if you have a background as a business development consultant like I do, you know that things are changing too rapidly. Not only will trying to keep up with every change and respond to it with your business, make your head spin, but it’s actually bad business practice. You don’t want to make quick moves thinking you’re going to get ahead of things that’s not going to help your business and it’s not going to help your life. The best thing that we can all do right now is stay on the platform while everyone else is going on the roller coaster. When you see those live broadcast notifications come up and they give you insta-anxiety because you’re saying yourself, one more thing to do.
(08:24):
One more moment. I missed one more curve to get ahead of. Recognize that they can take that rollercoaster and you can opt to stay on the platform. When your kids are running around the house, not managing any schedule that you’ve set. When you’re, they’re wondering where their textbook is and their zoom calls ending. You can choose to stay on the platform. They’ll navigate, they’ll figure it out. You can help and if you miss that call that day, guess what? It’ll be okay. We’re not going to get this hundred percent right. We’re all figuring it out as we go, but recognize that when we emerge from this and we will, you will find out that you’re stronger than you ever knew. One of the places that we draw inspiration, at least in the Walters household. during this whole time, is from battling cancer. When MidTiny got sick, we had to learn to live with the new reality that it was likely going to get worse before it got better.
(09:18):
We also had to adjust, with a mom who loves to schedule, plan and prepare, to having no idea what tomorrow would look like. Would it be a good day where she had a little bit of energy and wanted to go outside or go to the pool? Or would it be a day where an infection showed up out of nowhere and we’d be in the hospital for a week? If it was a chemo day were we going to have side effects or was she going to be up for watching a movie? We didn’t know with cancer what tomorrow was going to bring, but we did know it was going to pass and we did know that when it did things would be different, but that we could handle it and that we would be better for it. One of the tools that we use during that cancer journey was a rating chart.
(10:08):
Every single day we assigned the day a number, one through ten. One was, I feel great and nothing is happening, everything’s perfect, and 10 was the world is a dumpster fire, get me out of here. And every single day we let everyone choose a number. How are you feeling? How are you showing up in the world today? How do you feel about out there in relation to how you feel inside? And what we did was we tried to make sure we structured our day with an intent to lower that number. We wanted to make sure we made choices that would help that number go down and not help that number go up. So if somebody was posting a seven, we would then say, okay, well, you know what? Maybe this isn’t a build the business day. Maybe this isn’t a day where we try to go to the pool. Maybe it’s a day where it’s okay to just take a little easy worry about things inside the house.
(11:01):
Maybe not do nothing but do things that serve us where we are. I recommend using the rating key because in this season when you are in the face of your family every single day, communication is going to be key. Keeping a temperature check on how everyone’s feeling and showing up in the world today is going to really help you get a handle when everything seems to be spinning out of control. I want to let you know that there’s plenty of chaos happening out there and you don’t have to be a part of it. You can choose to step back, dive into your family and just focus on what helps you all grow. That is enough. You are enough and whatever it is you decide to do in this season, you will come out of this better than when you started. Lean in, support your family, make the choices that help you today where you are. Now on an upside because I always like to end with a little bit of a silver lining.
(12:01):
I would love to build up a list of ideas on what it is we’re going to do. When this whole thing wraps up. I have a feeling that we’re probably going to have a lot of summer left, so I want to know, tweet me, tag me on Instagram, I want to know the first thing that you’re going to do when this whole thing blows over. Is your family going to go to a favorite restaurant? Tell me which one it is. Are you going to go to the mall and peruse and browse and see what’s been restocked? Are you going to the movies to catch something that you’d missed? Give me ideas. I cannot wait to hear them. Tweet me, tag me, send them my way. Thank you so much for taking the time to always come back and spend time with me here and this is really valuable to me and I’m grateful for you. If you want to connect more, of course you can find me on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. And if we’re going to work together to maybe pivot the business cause this isn’t your season to pause, I’d love to help you stay aligned with your legacy and continue to profit sustainably. Head to NicoleWalters.com and learn more. We’ll chat soon, friend.
(13:06):
Thanks so much for listening, friend. If you enjoyed this podcast, head over to NicoleWalters.com. I’d love for us to stay in touch, so make sure you drop your email address so I can send you inspiration, business details and the occasional funny story and because I’m so generous, there might even be a selfie in the mix. Thanks again. Make sure you subscribe and come back soon.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- How to stay on the platform when everyone is riding the rollercoaster,
- If you should pivot or pause right now,
- What I am doing in my family and business during this time, and
- How to weather this storm
Resources and links mentioned in this episode:
More about The Nicole Walters Podcast:
The Nicole Walters Podcast is for the everyday entrepreneur that wants to increase their income but doesn’t know where to start. If that’s you, you’re in the right place!
Nicole Walters is a wife, mom, income strategist, entrepreneur, and the founder of The Monetized Life™. Join Nicole each week for a new episode packed with what you need to know to gain clarity, grow your network and monetize your life using the proven corporate strategies she mastered in 10 years as a Fortune 500 executive.
Whether you’re just starting out and don’t know your next step, or you’re multi-passionate and don’t know the right next step, Nicole is here to break it down for you! Richfriend, let’s add some commas to your bank account!
Listen each week. Do. The. Work, and success WILL come!