EPISODE 94: STABLE: Build an Energized Writing Business

Marie:
Yeah.

Jessi:
You know, we were talking just before we went live about how often, when you're looking at business advice, there's a lot of focus around this topic of finding energy and time and avoiding burnout in the context of your business. And that's great. And that is definitely something we're going to talk about today. And you are not two separate people. There's not like business you and personal you. They're intertwined, especially when you run your own business. And so when we're talking about energy and burnout, yes, we're gonna talk about how can you build a business that allows you to feel energized, but that also means taking a look at your personal life. That also means creating a life where you feel energized and where you can recognize the signs when things are happening that are energy depleters. So we're gonna talk about this from that kind of holistic angle because that is how we are as people we are not just one thing or the other.

Marie:
Totally. Yeah. I mean, if you're a caretaker for maybe an aging parent or for a child, if you are moving, like that's a big pain, right? Like, last year I got a divorce and that was definitely something that consumed a lot of my energy, just dealing with that. There's a lot of things that happen in your personal life that can really contribute to you not having energy to show up the way you want to in a lot of areas of your life, including your professional life. But the other thing is you don't have to actually be burned out, you don't have to be kind of at that extreme to feel a lack of energy in your business.
So for instance, before we started hiring writers several years ago, there was a point in time in which we had more work than we could handle coming in the door. And we were feeling exhausted by it. And some of it is because we just didn't have enough processes in place yet because we were doing a lot of repeatable tasks manually. We didn't have our prices set to a place where we could be compensated adequately for all the hours we were putting in. So that kind of goes to the lucrative episode or the lucrative part of the STABLE framework, right? So there were several reasons why we were exhausted, but we knew that if we were to deliver on these contracts that we had signed and promised, we had to do more. But the idea of doing more, we were like, "No! anything but more!" And so that's when we made the decision to hire writers to support us. That doesn't have to be your answer if this is what's happening for you. Like I said, also, we created more SOPs. Also, we raised our praises. Also, we became more confident and competent in the work and experienced in the work so that it could go faster and we felt better about it. Like there's a lot of ways to feel more energized in your business. But when you aren't feeling energized in your business, I guess my moral of the story to you is acknowledge that it's real. And it's a queue for you to make a change towards greater sustainability.

Jessi:
Yeah, I think, in some ways, the E and the STABLE framework is a bellwether for the other five letters. Because when we're not feeling energized, sometimes the solution is some of the things we'll talk about today to add energy back or to find ways to mitigate the things that are taking energy away. And sometimes the way that you do that is by looking at other areas of the STABLE framework. Like for example, the B for boundaries. So this E in energized is really a good way for you to check in with yourself, to see maybe, okay, well, there are some other things that need to change. And again, it may be in your business, it may be in your personal life.
So keeping that in mind, let's kind of define what we mean by energy, because I think a lot of times, I think the example that Marie used is a really good example of how we typically feel about and think about energy. It's the things that we're doing, right? It's, we're doing so much that we become burnt out. We become exhausted. We can't do anything else. And that's absolutely a part of it. But energy, the energy that we have, or don't have, is not only comprised of, or the things that we do. It's also comprised of the things that are happening in our minds. And so that can be things that we are consciously thinking about. So like decision fatigue, for example, is real. And like, if you have 8 million tiny decisions to make in a day and you have to consciously think about, okay, well, I have to decide what to price this. And then I have to decide what to do with this team member who's having an issue. And then I have to go and decide what to pack for my child for lunch. All of those decisions add up, and then that can lead to fatigue.
And it's also what you are thinking about inactively. So what you're processing. So for example, I tend to be really slow processor when it comes to just like something happens that is emotionally charged, either positively or negatively, it doesn't really matter. I'm gonna be thinking about that sort of like mulling over it in the back of my mind for a while. And that takes energy, even if it's not something that I'm actively thinking about.
So when we're talking about energy, we wanna be looking at not just the hours on the clock that you're putting towards your work. Although we will be talking about tracking that time so you know how much time you are putting towards your work or your personal life, different areas of it. But it's also the decisions you make. It's also the time you take to process emotions and events. It's also the things that you're stressing about or on the flip side, the things that you're looking forward to. That's a positive energy contribution. So it's not all negative either. We're talking about energy as sort of this neutral thing. And some of the things we think, do and process are energetically positive, and some are energetically negative.

Marie:
Totally, you know, we can derive energy from the type of work we're doing. If you enjoy something, you know, they always say time flies when you're having fun, right? But like, if you enjoy the work that you're doing, if you feel a high level of competency at it, that's gonna give you energy. Or at least it's gonna drain your energy less quickly than something where you're like, I don't like this. I don't feel good at it.
This isn't just client work either. This includes out-of-client work activities, right? I remember for a while, Jessi, we would like, oh my gosh, every time it was time to look at the budget we were like, Ugh. It would take all this energy because we were like, we're not numbers people. Having to go crunch numbers and come up with percentages and blah, blah, blah. That felt exhausting. And then we found systems to support us in that process and it became better for us. But another area about energy is the people you're working with. Like, how do you feel about your clients? How do you feel about your team members if you have them? If you love the people you're working with, it's gonna make your day go faster. If you are dreading a project or a meeting, have you ever heard of that, well, Jessi, I know you have, cuz we've talked about this, but listener, that waiting mode thing, right? Where you're like, okay, I have a client meeting that I'm not really looking forward to at 2:00 PM today. It is currently 10:00 AM and my brain cannot do anything else. It's stuck, waiting for 2:00 PM to come so I can get this meeting out of the way. And it's like, I've lost now that whole four hours of productivity in the middle. And that happens, especially on things where we're like not feeling great about it. Kind of dreading it, it's draining our energy.

Jessi:
Yeah. And so for a real-world example, outside of work, like a personal life example of something that is energetically positive, one of the things I love to do is rock climbing. And usually I do it at an indoor gym, which is maybe like a 20-minute bike ride away. And I'll go and I'll spend about two hours climbing. And even though it ends up taking, with transportation and all, like maybe three hours out of my day, because it's something that I love to do. And it's something that makes me feel good. And it's something that I feel reasonably competent at, while also knowing that there's always ways to improve. It's something that really, even though it cuts time out of my day, it actually makes it feel like I have more time because I have more energy for the stuff that I'm filling into a smaller period of time. And so, you know, it's something I look forward to as opposed to maybe like, I don't know, going to the dentist, which just puts me right into waiting mode where I'm like, okay, well I have to do this thing and I know it's good for me, but it's kind of gonna make my whole day drag a little bit.

Marie:
Totally. You know, another area where I want you to consider energy is money. You know, are you making enough money to feel like that is an adequate amount of compensation energetically for the work that you are doing. If you are, if you are like, yes, like I feel like I make the salary that is good for me. And I'm able to provide for myself and my family and whatever your priorities are, man, you're gonna feel a lot better about coming to work every day, right? If you're not feeling that way, that's when you're gonna be like, this is not worth my time. And when you say it's not worth my time, you could also interpret that as this is not worth my energy, right?
I also want you to consider your physical and mental health, right? Like I know in the times when I've really struggled with my mental health, work has felt energetically draining to me because I was already in a depleted place. Or if I was sick, you know, same story, right? So if you're experiencing some kind of chronic condition, whether that's physical or mental health or something temporary, something acute that also can be an energetic drain, and vice versa. If you're getting enough sleep, if you're exercising, if you are feeling good in your body, if you're feeling stable and joyful, just generally speaking in your life, like that gives you energy. So this is what we mean about like, you know, there isn't just work Marie and personal life Marie. These things are intertwined and they do impact each other. And energy is one of those areas where, really, that barrier is extraordinarily fuzzy and maybe nonexistent.

Jessi:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think too, because of that, we need to be really careful about how we're going about "solving" these things, because it may not be as simple an answer as, oh, well, stop feeling this way. Like you can't do that. That's not how mental health works. And it's also not how physical health works. It's not just like, oh, well you're feeling X, Y, Z in your body. So don't go do this thing and you'll stop. Like, that's not how it works. Everything is more complicated than that. Our mental health is more complicated. Our physical health is more complicated and our energy as a whole is more complicated. So that's sort of the big caveat on this whole conversation is that whatever you come up with is going to be individualized to you. And there are some things that you can't get away from. Like for example, my mom has rheumatoid arthritis. That is a condition that she lives with and that she has to learn to work around and balance her energy around because she can't just snap her fingers and be like, oh, my RA is gone now. It's just not a thing that I deal with. And so going into this, knowing that like some things are more changeable than others and that's okay. We wanna look at what we have control over and what we don't have control over. We wanna look at ways that we can use the things we have control over to make the things that we don't have control over more manageable. So let's talk a little bit about the how behind that.

Marie:
Yeah, absolutely. So the first thing we want you to do is think about, and maybe, you know, grab a piece of paper, what fills your energetic well and what drains your energetic well. And again, we mean both personally and professionally. That is something that you're gonna have things at the top of your mind that this fills me up, this drains me, and then you can take a look at that and see how much of it am I doing, right. If I'm doing a ton of stuff on the fills me up, or it doesn't have to be doing either, right. It could also just be the environment that you're in. Does my environment fill me up? Does my environment train me? But if you have a lot of things under the fill me up column and not a lot of things under the drain column, you're probably feeling pretty great. Energetic is not the area that you may need to focus on right now in your business. But if it's either way around, if there's a lot of things in the drain column, that's a little alert for you to say, Hey, maybe I need to shift some stuff.

Jessi:
Yeah. And again, it doesn't have to be just things you're doing. It could be your environment. It could be things you're thinking about. Like what kinds of things fill you up? What kind of things do you look forward to? What kind of things really put that light bulb on of like, oh yeah, that's gonna be great. So definitely put down things that you do that fill or drain your energetic well, but also put things that you have to think about, things that you have to process. Like maybe arguing with your partner always turns into a long period of processing. Maybe it takes you a few days to come back from that fully and feel like you've regained your energy. So think about it in terms of both personal and professional and think of it in terms of filling and draining your energetic well. And then track your time, personal and professional. Spend a week or so, doesn't have to be a long period of time, but just like spend a week writing down, okay, what am I doing all day? What am I thinking about all day? What am I processing? If you can parse that out and just take notes. You know, I spent 20 minutes this morning actively thinking about and making decisions about what I needed to do to get my kid off to school. I spent 30 minutes actively thinking about what to do about a client situation. And then I spent two hours actively working on a client project. Spend a week just tracking that time, no judgment just to get the data. And then after you're done tracking it, you can go back through those lists of things that you've done, things that you've thought about, and you can mark them as either energy positive or energy negative, or maybe energetically neutral.

Marie:
Yeah. You know, we also talk about- like you hear, especially a lot in articles about household chore division and things like that. But you hear about emotional labor, right? Like, maybe you don't think about this as a thing, but were you spending some time putting together a grocery list in your head? Were you spending some of your energy on making sure that your kid got to piano practice on time? Like that kind of stuff, that is stuff that does drain your energy or demand. I guess I shouldn't say drains, but it demands energy of you. And it's one of those things that we don't acknowledge. So, pay attention to that stuff. So, what are those energy-positive activities that are existing for you and then what are the energy negative activities? And that can be sort of that unspoken emotional labor. And so we, we obviously want the scale for you to be more on the energy positive side of things than energy negative, but there's a few things you can do if you're seeing that it's on the energy negative side of things.

Jessi:
Yeah, absolutely. And my favorite place to start with this is like, yeah, okay. You can say, all right, let me get rid of all the energy negative things, which may or may not be realistic.

Marie:
Probably not, right. Somebody still has to like make a grocery list.

Jessi:
Yeah. We all have to do things we don't like. However, we can maybe mitigate them a little bit and mitigate how much energy they're requiring from us. But before we talk about the energy-negative stuff, I like to look at what energy-positive things can you add. And so a really simple example of this, two simple examples actually, one is something that I do every day, which is during my lunch, I go for a walk because I wilt if I am not in the sunshine. I like just physically get very sad if I am not in the sun. And some days I can't fit in a full walk and that's fine, I will go out and I will take my shoes off and put my feet on the warm pavement and just stand in the sun for like five minutes.

Marie:
So seems you're just like an overgrown peony.

Jessi:
I really am like if I don't have my five minutes in the sun, like my whole day is shot. That is a very small energy-positive activity that I do that I can add. Another thing that Marie, you and I have talked about quite a bit actually is both of us really value travel. That is something that we do that really excites us. But even more than the actual doing of the travel is having something on the calendar to look forward to. That's something that we're thinking about. So whenever I have a trip planned, and it doesn't have to be a big trip, it doesn't have to be an expensive trip. It could be like, I'm gonna go live in a tent for a week in a really cool-looking place. That's great. That's something I can look forward to. So when a trip ends, I try to put a new one on the books so that I always have some sort of thing that I'm looking forward to that is getting me out of the house and into nature. And that just knowing I have something to look forward to, that is something I'm thinking about that is energy positive.

Marie:
Right. Absolutely. And it also doesn't have to be, I mean, that's something that may cost money that you don't have, right. Or that's something that may take time that you don't have, but what are some things you can do for your body and for your environment that don't demand much or anything in terms of money or time, right? Can you open the blinds in the morning so that the sunlight comes in? Can you make sure that the food that- if you have to go grocery shopping anyway, make sure that you do pick up some food that is nutritious and makes you happy. In fact, I was just listening to the Stuff You Should Know podcast, and they had an episode on happy foods. They're like literally foods you can eat that increase like happy chemicals in your brain. Right. Get yourself a banana. Like, I don't know, whatever, like there's various foods on this list. It's something with like, you have to go shopping anyways. So add it, throw a banana or two in your cart. Maybe you hate bananas. There's other options. That's just the one that I'm remembering right now.

Jessi:
All bananas all the time.

Marie:
Right. Or like maybe at night, if you're finding that you're not sleeping very well, but you also are, you know, it's too hot. Do you have another blanket you could swap out on your bed to just help you sleep more soundly at night? Like that's something that's probably not gonna take you much time. Probably won't cost you any money. If you can just go rummaging around in your closet or just swap something on a guest bed or whatever. I mean, I've gone camping. I've literally slept under a towel before because it's what I had on hand. And it was not too hot. So what can you do essentially to support your wellbeing? And that can include your physical body and your mental health.

Jessi:
Yeah. And then when you're looking at the energy negative activities for that, we like to use an activity that we got from Clockwork, the book by Mike Michalowicz, which we'll link to in the show notes. The way it's introduced in Clockwork is specifically around tasks that you do within your business or that your team does within the business. But we think it can be applied to all of the things that end up on your energy list after tracking your time for a week or so. And so this concept is called the Three T concept. It's about trashing trimming or transferring tasks, and there's actually a fourth T hanging out, which is treasure, which are, what are the things that you love, that you don't wanna get rid of, which are those energy-positive things. But let's talk about the three Ts that can be applied to the energy negative, or even some of the energy-neutral things. If you want to maybe spend a little less time, either physical time or brain time on those things.
So trash, what can you get rid of? What on your list can you just stop doing, is there anything on your list? Like for example, is there an inclusion in one of your packages that doesn't really do much for your client? It's just extra busy work that you could just get rid of, and it won't necessarily change the experience for the client, but it'll free up some of your time? Trim. Is there anything that you can reduce the amount of time required for it? And then transfer. Is there anything you can delegate to someone else? Can someone else write that grocery list for you?

Marie:
So, an example of trim in your business would be like, I remember when we've talked about this before on the podcast, but like back in the day when we would have a sales call with somebody, then we would get off the phone and we would draft up a custom proposal. Eventually, we got to a place where we had set packages instead of custom proposals. And so, yeah, we still would get off a sales call. Even now we get off a sales phone, we'll shoot over an email with what it's gonna cost them, what their investment is to work with us. But it's not custom anymore. It's like, ah, here's the package that we have that suits your needs. This is the cost copy paste. So that's a trim, right?
A transfer. Okay. Let's say you're like, I do not have the money to hire a VA right now or whatever it is, right. That's fine. That's fine. You can still transfer things. So for example, we had a writing business client who we were consulting and coaching with and she's really good at both graphic design and writing. One of her options could be, could I partner with a designer? Cause she just wanted to write. Could I partner with a designer so that they do the design work and I can refer my clients over to them, transfer it off my plate. And then I'm just doing the writing that I really want to be doing, right. So those are some examples of things that don't even cost you money that can help you go through this Three T process.

Jessi:
Yep, absolutely. And trash, I think we've actually had this experience where there were clients who we worked with, who maybe we started doing some things that were not entirely in our zone of genius. Like maybe we were handling the tech aspects of their content. So we were writing the content, but then we were also putting it into their publishing platforms and you know, every client has their own that they work with. And so you have to learn them and then figure out all the techy bits, which was just like, we could do it, but it took extra time and energy away from the stuff that we actually wanted to do. And so eventually we were like, this is not something that's within our services to offer. We're trashing it off of our services. That's kind of a trash and transfer because the client then had to find someone else to do that. So it was transferred to someone else, but it was something that we said, you know, we are fully removing this off of our plate. 100%, it's gone.
Something else with trash in your personal life could be, you know, is there something in your routine that you are just doing out of habit? Is there something that you have always done just because that's the way that you do it? I'm really bad at this. I have a tendency to make routines for myself that make absolutely no sense. Marie can corroborate that.

Marie:
They make sense kinda but it's one of those things where it's like, you get yourself into a habit and it doesn't even occur to you to think, is there another way to do this, right.

Jessi:
Yeah, absolutely. I'll use a big example. This is maybe not like an everyday thing, but a big example would be, so in my creative writing for years and years and years, I would do in November national novel writing month, NaNoWriMo. And the goal of NaNoWriMo is to write a 50,000 word novel or start of a novel between the dates of November 1st and November 30th. I started doing it when I was a teacher in the classroom as a way to motivate my students to write creatively. And I am a very streak-oriented person. So once I did it one year, I was like, well, let me see if I can do it again. And then I was like, oh, well now I have a two-year streak. I can't let it fail. And so I did it again and again and again, and again. Flash forward to year 10 and I am dreading every November, but I'm like, I gotta do it. I can't break the streak, I gotta do it. And I remember having a conversation with, uh, a coach that I had at the time and she was just like, but why? I was like, I don't know. I just have to, I don't enjoy it anymore. It's making me like, not look forward to one of my favorite things in the world, which is writing fiction. But if I break the streak and she was like, what's gonna happen. And the answer was nothing, nothing happened. I broke the streak and it was fine. And in fact, it gave me back a lot of time and energy to think about the things I was writing and to actually look forward to writing creatively. So that was something that I trashed. I got rid of the expectation that I had set on myself to do this thing every year. I just got rid of it. And then I was able to spread that energy out throughout the year.

Marie:
So good. Yeah. Like dear friends, I can't even tell you how impressive Jessi's streak was and also how happy I am for her that she was able to release that. Yeah. So, okay. So basically what we've talked about today is assessing what leaves you feeling more energized? What leaves you feeling less energized when it comes to both your professional life and your business life? So this is the homework that we have for you today. So first of all, track your time. Do this for about a week, both on stuff you're doing personally and stuff you're doing professionally. This is not gonna be a full picture because you know, a lot of the things we talked about may not have anything to do with how you're spending your time. For instance, if you experience chronic fatigue, like whether you automate this or that, like, it may not make a difference, right? So this isn't gonna be a full picture, but it is going to help you assess the things that you're actually spending your time doing, or the things that you're thinking about. Whether those on the sort of energy-positive, energy-giving side of things, or on the energy-negative, energy-draining side of things. So that way you'll just have some data to work with. And then take that list of things that you're doing with your time and put a little plus or a little minus next to each of the things on the list.

Jessi:

Marie:
Absolutely. And then, of course, your last piece of homework is if you haven't already, please register for the stable writing business challenge. This will be in our show notes and it's a free challenge from July 11th through 13th, it's only three days long. And you're gonna figure out through that challenge, which of the areas of STABLE is the one for you to focus on now so that you can take strategic, focused action so that you can truly improve your business in the aspect that it needs it the most. So we really hope you'll join because we are happy to prepare this challenge for you. And we know that it's gonna be full of lots of great info.

Jessi:
Hope to see you there and hope to see you gaining a little more energy back in your life and business.

Marie:
Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Copywriter Collaborative Podcast. Make sure to visit our website, northstarmessaging.com/podcast, where you can subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify, and more.

Jessi:
If you found value in this episode, we'd love for you to leave us a review on your favorite podcast app and share it with your friends. Thank you, and happy copywriting.