When it comes down to it, running in business is about two things — we are here for both.
👋 Just a heads up, before you move forward. This is not your typical average webpage (this is by design). This page has a point and purpose to be kind to your mind to know from the get go if what we do here is that thing you have been craving to work better with the way you work. It is weird and it actually works. You have been warned. Enjoy 😉
Kathy.
Have you noticed webpages typically cater to the need for speed. And yet, some of us like a few more examples, a little more chit chat along the way. This webpage is designed with you in mind. Here we weave and walk as natural conversations do. For those who want to skip forward at any time, we have made it enjoyable for you too 👇
What we (tend to) do now.
Beginning, building and being in business is like holding an arm full of puppies with numbered balloons all while being surrounded by the crowding others telling you to put them in order, all while handing you another puppy 🫣
Sometimes you may say you have enough puppies and many more times you are handed a puppy you just have to have now or soon realise you picked up another unknowingly along the way.
Many in business say that they will put their puppies in order one day only to turn and see they have so many puppies that an order seems beyond possible, let alone practical.
We could keep on about the puppies. We could even offer another puppy. Alas, there is a tipping point of too many puppies. So, we say enough with the puppies.
For now we shift gears.
Instead we ask you to breathe a breath.
Only one.
And, when you are ready, another.
Keep going.
And, when you are ready and when you find all your focus is with your breathing breath then, and only then, are we ready to circle back to move forward 🤸♀️
Okay. Do you remember what we were talking about before the puppies? Do you remember reading about the idea that running in business comes back to two things? Just two. Are we flippin’ crazy?! Yup and we work with it in the most wonderful ways here 🤭
Simply said, everything comes from and back to Doing + Deciding.
You are right if you paused to ponder if this was the right way around, meaning don’t we mean deciding and doing? Nope. that would be ideal. Alas, the reality of our real ways and days in business is in this order — doing and deciding.
While we could change it, we will not. Instead we leverage it. We work with what is already working. Before we work with our innate urge to do we first circle back a little to look lightly on something you may be yet to notice.
Let’s look at running in business. Now, did we say running a business? Nope. Did you read running a business?
(c’mon be honest 🤭).
Our minds are lazy and love filling in the gaps with what is familiar, so much so we are blind to it until we are not. So here we lean on this knowing to grow a little growing. We promise it is easy to the point of being enjoyable.
Are you ready to be a little more curious yet?
We circle back to something we said at the start…running in business.
Many find that they read have read this as ‘running a business’ — this is how our minds work. Without saying a word, where something looks familiar it will be pre-filled with the familiar. This is where the greatest opportunity can be opened up with one word. You are invited to be curious in what one word can do here with the lightest of light looks at the language 👇
Before we get where we are going, you are most welcome to note that everything below is what Kathy does out of sight and is unsaid. What you will see on the surface is a weirdly warm sense of something is happening. And soon you will hear a considered question leading you to a growing knowing of a new view coming into focus (on purpose for a purpose).
Let’s see how we can find space by only working with our words already in the room.
Firstly working with what many read we will narrow in on the ‘a’ in ‘running a business’. What we can notice here is that the ‘a’ defines ‘a thing’ (your business).
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Now, when we pair said ‘thing’ (your business) with running, you guessed it, the pace is set. And while we could now set the run to a range of speeds, that is not where the good stuff is waiting to be gotten (that is only the top layer).
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We keep going. We step a couple of layers a little below the surface and see that the ‘a’ puts us outside and alongside that ‘thing’ (your business).
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Meaning when ‘we are running a business’ means we are always on the outside and responsible for (and expected to be) always moving at a running pace 🥵
Now, breathing a breathing and bringing the focus to what we actually said, ‘…running in business’, with our focus fully on ‘in’ 😃
Already we have move to assuming it is possible to be ‘in’ the thing (your business), which one could also assume there is an ‘out’ of the (yay, options!).
Again, that’s not the good stuff to gotten yet!
With the knowing now knowing that is an in and out means there is a space that is likely to have structure to define and delineate the difference of in and out.
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Now we a space to work with, to build, to be. Moreover…
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We now have an existing structure to work with to sure up and scaffold from. And…
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Now, we can truly utterly excited breath that that wanting breath as there is now a really real option of no longer running all the time, meaning, you can now choose with more choice 🥳
…yup, that’s a little of what happens under the surface to lighten the load in your business ways and days 🙃
It’s time for our business talking talk.
Before we keep going, it is important to know one more language thang at work here and an assumption that needs to be said aloud.
We believe that by uttering it out loud we can grow stronger with you from here.
Every decision and doing is done with (and without) known direction.
That’s it. Obvious, right?! Yeah. Nah. We will walk past the waste we often work with in misdirected doings in Solo Business (for now) and instead bring focus to the shift from decision and doing and the idea (just the idea) of which direction each decision and doing is facing, is moving, and is being informed and influenced by and to.
And, If you are wondering, it does tickle about now (and only in the beginning) and then once the structure is set and the work is working, soon there is a growing sense of it all coming together and working with the way you work…but first the tickle 😉
(No ‘Skip’ button, this part is hella important!)
Whether you are at the beginning or have been in the Solo Business space for some time, you will feel familiarity with the words ‘vision’, ‘mission’, and ‘values’. You may even also know of ‘business model’, ‘business plan’, or ‘strategy’.
(…and, you may already have one or more of these in your business. We ask, do you know exactly where they are?)
The key here is to ‘having’ these essential business assets — simply having them is not enough.
Instead, we say there are ways in your business day where they are waiting for these assets to be put to work, to actually use these assets. After all, assets are only assets when they add value.
To give you an idea, do you know that you can use your business vision to sense check the littlest things you do each day? Do you know that you can make meaning in a moment that seem senseless by looking through the lens of your business values? And do you know that you can work with a clean and lean tech set-up by walking among one or more parts of your business model?
Here we put the words to work to bring together the moving parts and to actually use the assets we have to lighten the load all the while feeling the feels of the space (your business) both opening up and settling into itself.
Rightio, let’s go. Enough with the chit chat language love (and we do love our language here). We have work to do.
Moving forward, you have two point two-eighths of options…
Option two-eighths - If we were you, we would start with something small, something you can do now, something that will give you a sense of what to expect when you say yes to taking us up on one of the options below.
We suggest you start with a Solo Business Projects (our favs are building the business behaviour of (actually) tracking your business time and building Your Actual Business Asset Register…yup, you may see that we are all for making things actually real 🤭).
Then when you are ready and want to share a little of the load, you are most very totally welcome to learn more (and book) below.
OPTION 1
The ‘Mentor’
Deciding 🧠 🧠
Doing 🧱 🧱 🧱 🧱
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Mentoring means something different for everyone. You are either looking for someone to work with who knows a lot about a little or a little about a lot. We are the latter.
We work hard to know enough for it to be enough. We’re working hard not to be the expert but to be experienced. We’re working to keep a clean separation from the technically correct to keep connected with the practical.
To be clear…
We will not do anything it if you’re not in the room (there’s a rare exception to this).
We will not make decisions for you.
We will not own or maintain anything outside of our session that is yours.
And, we will not say it’ll be fine. But we will say, ‘Mmmmm, that’s a fucking pickle we have here, how can we get it working with the way you work?’
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(…a heads up, this one is a longish answer.)
We will say it again because it is important - Mentoring means something different for everyone.
And, you’re either looking for someone to work with who knows a lot about a little or a little about a lot —we’re the latter.
We work hard to know enough for it to be enough. We’re working hard not to be the expert but to grow and maintain experience in Solo Business.
We work to keep a clean separation from the technical to keep connected with what’s practical — we’ll work with you to learn what you know now, what you have already, and what you need.
We’ll work with you to only start that which we can finish each session.
We do actually break down the big things into little actions and outputs.
We do name the options to make for easy decisions.
We do track the parts as they present and pop then in place to be ready to pick up at the right time.
We do work with you to navigate the real human parts to grow your real human self in the context of running in your business.
We do actually believe Solo Business can be more than the balance and can be more akin to adding value and quality in living our lives.
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Some who gets it. That someone who knows when to move, when to pause, when to take the lead, and when to take the backseat.
Someone who is all about and for the focus of being in business where all can be done by one #solobusinessgoals 🤸♀️
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Mentoring is one of those someones we know to go and for what.
Sometimes we map the thinking together (actually this is a big part of what we do here).
Sometimes sometimes we press the buttons together (if it‘s in our wheelhouse)
And, sometimes we’re that trusted someone to get what you’re thinking out on the page, into a plan, and on your way to know who to work with next (if it’s outside of doing it yourself).
From experience, it’s always clear either in the first or the last 5 minutes of our First Session whether we are a oner or only just starting.
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Tracking all the parts in the room.
“I love that you pay attention to what we are working on and continuously noting what else is in the room as it comes up. I couldn’t belief how it was clear what needs to be done now (or later or never!). After a while I realised everything was there as I needed it and I was the one making the decisions all along.”
OPTION 2
The ‘Thought Partner’
Deciding 🧠 🧠 🧠 🧠
Doing 🧱
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Not everyone is fit for this kinda thang. Working with us as a Thought Partner does not add value when you see you and your business as:
being new in Solo Business
wanting to press buttons and not nut something out (yup, it tickles to wade a little below the surface of something), or
not having the time or energy to slow the noise and busy to focus on one thing for a time.
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Simply said, those looking for a Thought Partner are already established in Solo Business.
Typically, an experienced Solo Business Owner is looking for someone who can think along side them without getting preachy or handsy 😝
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Typically, we would expect you were directly or indirectly pointed to this point by someone you know (and trust).
So to give you an idea, we know professionals who are usually the one others look to in the room for answers go-to enjoy love themselves silly in working with someone else who is a gun at what they do too.
Some specific examples of where you may be at include:
exploring a new opportunity (e.g., working with someone new, sizing up a new direction for the business)
navigating something that happened (or is happening), e.g., receiving a complaint, breaking up with someone (client, supplier, or network), or finding peace with unsubscribes,
walking away - calling it a day - saying aloud for reals that that you may close your business.
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Honestly, it is usually always very clear if this is a oner or if there is a need for a couple of sessions to think thorough through the thinking (usually if we go over the two session mark on the same focus then we are usually building it out to get it done).
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PostIt Noting 🤣 Seriously, the words we hear pretty much each session are, ‘oooo, I just love this part.’
“I just love that I can talk and you will pop it on the (Miro) post it notes the way I meant to say it. I love what we do with them after as well, but just that first part was something I didn’t know I needed in getting my thinking out of my head!”