She's Got This: A Journey to Success

Reducing your Small Business Carbon Footprint

In this episode, Shelby highlights the importance of adopting an environmentally friendly approach to day-to-day business operations. She shares insights on how businesses of all sizes can work more proactively and efficiently to reduce their carbon footprint. From reducing energy consumption in buildings and reducing carbon emissions through transportation, Shelby also discusses the benefit of working with suppliers who follow eco-friendly practices. She emphasizes the need to embrace a business culture that prioritizes green practices at its core and suggests ways that businesses can align with organizations that work to nurture and protect the environment. Shelby outlines the benefits of remote working for employees to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that are the result of their daily commute. As a virtual assistant providing support to businesses, she outlines how her business also operates with a low carbon footprint by working remotely and using digital tools such as online document management systems, online file sharing, email, and digital invoicing. She encourages businesses to transition from paper-based processes to fully digital solutions and offers virtual assistance support in these and many other areas. -- Contact Shelby Joines | Joines Administration:  * Website: JoinesAdministration.ca [https://www.joinesadministration.ca/] * LinkedIn: Joines Administration [https://www.linkedin.com/company/joines-administration/] * Instagram: @JoinesAdministration [https://www.instagram.com/joinesadministration/] * Facebook: @JoinesAdministration [https://www.facebook.com/JoinesAdministration] -- Transcript: Shelby 00:07 Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of She's Got This: A Journey to Success. Thank you so much for being here. As always, I am so grateful for all my followers and listeners. If you haven't already, subscribe to this podcast on any of your favourite channels such as Apple podcast, Google podcast, Amazon music, or Spotify— whatever tickles your fancy, it would be greatly appreciated. Now, today's episode is going to be something that is really important, especially in today's economy, and the way that the world is moving in regards to greenhouse gas emissions, and businesses and companies that are really stepping up to reduce their carbon footprint. So buckle up, we're gonna be talking about some exciting initiatives and exciting ways where you can decrease your carbon footprint in your business, no matter what industry you are in.  Shelby 01:07 When you think of greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprint and being green and helping the environment, what usually comes to mind? Personally, big corporations, corporations that deal more so in industries that require deforestation or oil and gas, logging, transportation supply chain, things of that matter. A lot of us automatically go directly to those big corporations, the ones that you hear about in the news. Those are the heavy hitters, personally, for me anyways, when I think of greenhouse gas, carbon emissions, things along those lines, there are multiple other areas that could probably come to your mind too. But as a small business owner, are you thinking about your carbon footprint when it comes to your operations? Probably not. This is one of those things that we may not be thinking about on a regular basis. We think this is something that bigger businesses can do. What can the smaller, littler guy be doing to make a big impact on the environment and help reduce their businesses or their company's carbon footprint? Now, this is going to be an exciting episode, because this is a topic that I've really gotten super interested in in the last couple of months. This is something where I feel like my business Joines Administration is really going to take strides in the administrative world when it comes to supporting businesses in reducing their carbon footprint.  Shelby 02:46 So today, we're going to be talking about all things that relate to that and how an administrator that is virtual such as Joines Administration, can support your business when it comes to helping you reduce your carbon footprint. So, to start off, what is a carbon footprint? This is something and a word and a topic that gets thrown around so much, whether it's media, social media, the news, you name it, it is everywhere. But really, what is it?  Shelby 03:29 So, a carbon footprint is the measurement of the total amount of greenhouse gases emitted directly and indirectly by a person, organization, event or product. It is usually expressed in the equivalent tons of carbon dioxide or CO2. Now, a lot of people think that when it comes to carbon footprints or greenhouse gas emissions, or whatever the word that you may want to use means, they are very interchangeable. We think about businesses that have a product, sell a product, a physical product that needs to be created, designed, packaged, shipped, and whether that shipping is via rail, trucks, boats, air freight, emissions are being let out into our environment. But there are ways where you can help reduce that and make more conscious decisions on where your business is going and how you can help reduce that carbon footprint. So why does knowing and understanding your business's carbon footprint matter?  Shelby 04:39 For one, it can help you avoid regulatory penalties. Now, these penalties more so come into the bigger industries I mentioned before, such as oil and gas, logging, trucking, things like that. But by proactively adopting eco-friendly practices, businesses can avoid potential fines and penalties that are associated with current environmental regulations. Now, here in Canada, we have the carbon tax, there are ways that you can reduce that if you are in a more product-based business, or one of the bigger industries that will receive penalties from regulatory and environmental regulatory platforms if they are not reducing in a certain timeframe. But as a business, you can make the conscious decisions to really look into your supply chain management, who is the company that you are using to ship your products from? Are they personally taking any initiatives to really reduce their carbon footprint and reduce the emissions that their business is taking. Doing research like this and making tweaks to service providers or vendors that you were using based on these items can help you save in the long run and help you do a little bit to help our environment. Another reason why it matters is you want to experience the long-term financial resilience. Now this can apply to any business, whether you’re product-based, service-based, you name it, digital-based anything.  Shelby 06:19 But sustainable business practices can lead to greater long-term financial resiliency, by mitigating your risks associated with resource scarcity and climate change impacts. Now, when it comes to reducing your carbon footprint and becoming more eco-friendly as a business, it is not a race. It is definitely 100% a marathon, and this is something that you constantly have to be building on, evolving with, and helping to grow long term. But by taking these steps now early in your business, or just at any point in your business, just starting with it, you will, in turn, be able to see long-term financial gains from this in the long run by making tiny tweaks and adjustments to the way you operate now. So, what contributes to your carbon footprint? Other than the obvious things that you can, maybe be thinking of right now, I'm sure one or two are probably coming to mind. But from an administrative standpoint, what can contribute to your carbon footprint are things like commuting and business travel. So, frequent business travel, especially by air, can greatly increase a company's carbon footprint. You can consider having more Zoom meetings, digital meetings, things along those lines. Now, I'm not saying to completely stop meeting in person or anything like that, but being conscious and aware of how much you are actually travelling, what the distance you are travelling is, the method of transportation and taking those into effect and consideration, can really help lower your carbon footprint as a business owner. Shelby 08:06 Energy use in buildings and facilities— now this is another big one for people who are not so much on the virtual side but actually have real estate and office space where they go and are in-person, working all the time.  So offices, warehouses, and other business facilities consume a significant amount of energy for heating, cooling, lighting, and operation of equipment. Whether that is things that you plug in and you use on a daily basis, such as external hard drives, things like that, or if we're talking about more heavy operating equipment, such as compressors, or other tools that may run off of gasoline, diesel, whatever it may be, just being aware of how much you are using and consuming your energy in your buildings and your facilities can really make an impact. These can be tiny changes such as switching out your light bulbs to more energy efficient things, being aware of how many items you have plugged into outlets at any given time or power bars, making sure that any type of electronics that you may have, do have that energy efficient sticker on it. Little things like that, as well as the standard of making sure that you're doing your recycling and any kind of shared kitchens, doing your part on composting, things like that can really make a difference. And as I mentioned before, you also want to evaluate your supply chain operations.  Shelby 09:40 Now, the carbon footprint of a business is not limited to its direct operations but also includes the environmental impact of its supply chain. Now, as I mentioned before, this is how products or services or anything like that is shipped, whether that's again trains, air, truck transportation, boats, you name it, being able to evaluate who your supply chain operators are, and seeing what they are doing to offset their carbon footprint will in turn benefit your business's carbon footprint as well. Shelby 10:13 Business practices and culture— this is one of the topics that people don't normally think about. So, a company's culture that doesn't prioritize sustainability can lead to higher carbon footprints. This includes practices like unnecessary printing, lack of energy-saving measures, and poor resource management. Now, this can all get tied into, again, just doing those little things, making sure that if you do have to print a document, really ask yourself, is it crucial that I print this, what is the most effective way to print this, instead of printing it in full color, maybe go the route of being more print ink friendly and doing it in black and white, or sending out digital copies of any material to the attendees, and they can decide if they would like to see it virtually or digitally, or print it on their own time. Little things like this can really make an impact as well as can be huge cost saving measures in the long run. Businesses today spend an outrageous amount on printing and ink-related documentation. So not only are you helping the environment, but you are also saving a whole bunch of money in the long run for your business.  Shelby 11:40 Now, what are other ways that you can reduce your footprint as a business owner, we've mentioned a few of these before, but energy efficiencies, improving the energy efficiencies in your business operations is one of the most effective ways to reduce your carbon emissions. Now, whether this is at your home office, you have a physical office you go to anywhere you are conducting your business really, you can achieve this by upgrading to energy-efficient lighting, getting your heating and cooling systems checked regularly and making sure that they are up to date with the latest energy saving technology, as well as ensuring that you have proper insulation and ventilation in your business or your buildings, home, away. They will greatly save you again in the long run. Shelby 12:25 Remote work options. This is what we are here for and all about. By allowing your employees, or contractors, subcontractors to work from home, reduces the need for commuting, office heating, cooling, lighting… the list honestly goes on, thereby reducing the overall carbon footprint of your business. Now, this is a huge topic, and one that I don't think gets discussed about, talked about, or even just kind of brainstormed about really. Remote workers can save you so much on your energy bills, not only then as a subcontractor, for me, for instance; I take on my own carbon emissions footprint, all of the fun taxes and bills that come along with that onto my shoulders. Now, I am as energy efficient as I possibly can. In the new year, I'm looking to become more energy efficient and implement ways that I can help reduce my carbon footprint. But those things all fall on to the subcontractor, leaving you with lower bills, more cost savings, and a lower, smaller carbon footprint.  Shelby 13:45 And, like I mentioned before, supply chain management— making sure that you're choosing your suppliers who are also committed to sustainability and reducing their emissions can have a substantial impact on your own carbon footprint and the process of lowering that. And another fun option that you can do to help reduce your footprint as a business owner is carbon offsetting. And this one is super exciting. I do a bit of carbon offsetting myself in my business. I like to plant trees for my clients, customers and vendors at Christmas time and other times throughout the year as just a little thank you to help with reforestation across Canada. Not only does it make me feel really good, but I am making a small impact on helping our environment grow, while giving something of value to my clients, customers and vendors that's not necessarily going to increase my carbon emission. Don't get me wrong, gift baskets are great. But if you really look into it, the amount of products that are being built and packaged to have this basket, then for it to be shipped or delivered or courier to a client, it all ends up adding up. So that is my little bit of carbon offsetting.  Shelby 15:10 But what you can do, while reducing your admissions as the primary goal, you can also invest in offset carbon offset projects, such as reforestation, like I mentioned renewable energy development or community projects that really help support developing countries. Those are just a few little options to help you offset your carbon footprint. There are countless ones out there. If you're looking to go green and implement some carbon offsetting, I highly recommend you take a look at the amazing options that are out there. If you're looking to hear more about a company that I use for myself for planting trees across Canada, feel free to send me an email to info at joinesadministration.ca. and I will definitely pass that information along to you.  Shelby 16:07 Now, how can a virtual assistant help you offset your carbon footprint? This is an amazing little section, I had so much fun putting this together for you guys. So, on average, virtual assistants can help you save 10% + per year through reduced commuting emissions. Now, Joines administration works remotely, and by doing that we eliminate the need of daily commuting to an office, which is reducing our greenhouse gas emissions associated with our transportation, particularly from vehicles that are powered by fossil fuels, which a good majority of us are still running on because, just haven't gotten to that nice EV just yet.  Shelby 15:00 But, another great way that I can help offset your footprint or virtual assistant period can help you offset that footprint, is by decreasing your resource usage. Now we're specifically talking about paper right here because this is one of the biggest, biggest emission-producing things that businesses do, and a virtual assistant can help you reduce your paper usage by 20 to 50%. And for businesses that traditionally rely on a lot of paper-based processes, transitioning to a digital workflow with the help of Joines Administration can significantly reduce your paper consumption, thus saving the environment, one tree at a time.  Shelby 17:47 Now, we can also help you by supporting your business in implementing more green initiatives. We can do this through research, helping plan, and implementing eco-friendly practices within your company. Now this includes identifying sustainable suppliers that you may need to use, managing any green projects or initiatives, or tracking your overall carbon footprint. Another one, like I mentioned earlier, is carbon offsetting initiatives, we can help assist in identifying and managing those initiatives, such as investing in renewable energy products, reforestation efforts, or other environmental projects that compensate for your company's unavoidable admissions. We have to say it, sometimes these emissions can be unavoidable, but being able to really offset those emissions can do wonders for your business.  Shelby 18:45 Oh, I hope that you all found so much value in this really, carbon emissions isn't just something that is specifically targeted to big businesses, small and medium-sized enterprises or businesses can absolutely do their part as well in helping to go more green, be more eco friendly, and support the environment through sustainable, eco-friendly practices. And that can all start by very little initiatives that can lead to big and amazing things. Shelby 19:31 All right, everybody. I hope you had the greatest time listening in on this episode. This one was truly one of my favourites and I really hope that some of the tips and tricks I provided will help you in your business become more environmentally friendly, more eco-conscious, and just overall of little bit greener in your business. As always, if you haven't already, I would super appreciate if you would like, subscribe and share this podcast with any female entrepreneurs who you think this would bring value to. Be sure to follow like and subscribe on all the major platforms and podcasts such as Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Amazon Music, and Spotify. We’ll see you next time.

Virtual Assistants and Momentrepreneurs wtih Brittany Ashley

It’s hard work being a momentrepreneur, and in this episode, Shelby welcomes entrepreneur and strategic business coach Brittney Ashley to the studio. Brittney discusses how she helps clients deal with the all too familiar imposter syndrome that many women suffer from as they begin their journey into entrepreneurship. They also discuss the reasons they started their businesses and the challenges they faced working at a 9 to 5 job while raising a family.  Brittney suggests that companies offer flexible working options, including hybrid or work-from-home models, to allow employees to balance work with family commitments. In her own business, she provides work-at-home opportunities for Canadian women, employing a team that works from coast to coast.  As the owner of Creative Dynamics Virtual Services, Brittney understands the need for entrepreneurs to outsource tasks so they can focus on growing their businesses and also benefit from a better work-life balance. She assigns her clients an online business manager whose skills are matched to their specific needs. To save time and streamline processes, Brittney is also a proponent of automating tasks wherever possible through CRM tools such as Dubsado or Moxie, which are invaluable for her business.  About Brittney Ashley Brittney Ashley is the founder of Creative Dynamics Virtual Services, a virtual service agency offering specialized services to business owners. Her team consists of virtual assistants, online business managers, CRM specialists, marketing experts, and graphic designers who support business owners in taking their businesses to the next level and improving their lives.  Her journey to become an entrepreneur was sparked by the challenges of raising her children while managing a full-time career. Becoming an entrepreneur allowed her to manage both her career and home life successfully, and so she set up her company to empower fellow moms to work from home. Today, Brittney manages a highly-skilled,  all-woman team that provides exceptional service to their clients. Brittney is also certified as a Business Coach (ACC Accredited) and an Imposter Syndrome coach and works across various industries, including tech. Resources discussed in this episode: * Dubsado [https://www.dubsado.com] * Moxie [https://www.withmoxie.com] -- Contact Shelby Joines | Joines Administration:  * Website: JoinesAdministration.ca [https://www.joinesadministration.ca/] * LinkedIn: Joines Administration [https://www.linkedin.com/company/joines-administration/] * Instagram: @JoinesAdministration [https://www.instagram.com/joinesadministration/] * Facebook: @JoinesAdministration [https://www.facebook.com/JoinesAdministration] Contact Brittney Ashley | Creative Dynamics Virtual Services:  * Website: [https://www.joinesadministration.ca/]https://www.creativedynamicsva.com [https://www.creativedynamicsva.com] * LinkedIn: Creative Dynamics Virtual Services [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?fetchDeterministicClustersOnly=true&heroEntityKey=urn%3Ali%3Aorganization%3A54365175&keywords=creative%20dynamics%20virtual%20services%20ltd.&origin=RICH_QUERY_SUGGESTION&position=0&searchId=830fdf5b-ea56-40e3-a7ee-90f641ace3cc&sid=XF%3B&spellCorrectionEnabled=false] * Instagram: @CreativeDynamicVirtual services [https://www.instagram.com/creativedynamicsva/] * Facebook: @CreativeDynamicVirtualServices [https://www.facebook.com/CreativeDynamicsva/] -- Transcript:  Shelby 00:46 All right, and I am so excited for today. I have the wonderful, Brittney Ashley, of Creative Dynamics VA, or is it virtual assistants… sometimes you don't know if people actually just use the abbreviation or the full one.   Brittney  01:07 I know, Creative Dynamics for short, but it's a mouthful— Creative Dynamics Virtual Services.  Shelby 01:16 Awesome. Oh, love it. And she's here to talk about all things VA industry and the struggles that we go through with impostor syndrome on a daily basis, being entrepreneurs, mamapreneurs, female entrepreneurs, whatever you want to call us. But welcome, Brittany, thank you again. I've said this before we started recording so many times, I am so appreciative of you being here today and being our guest and talking on these super important topics with us. I am really looking forward to where this is going to go. It's always such a pleasure to be able to talk to other virtual and administrative personnel and staff, and workers. So, I am truly blessed to have you here. Thanks. Tell me a little bit about yourself and kind of what got you started on this career journey, where you've been, and all that good, fun story things.  Brittney 02:16 Yeah, well, Creative Dynamics started with the notion of helping mums work from home, and then it's just kind of built from that. But prior, I always joke that I was a hippie, because I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do in life. I came from like the tech, corporate world, it was just very toxic, not really understanding... like, I just felt like I never fit in. Even when I worked in a nine-to-five job, I just never understood why because I did all the things and some. And so, long story short, realized I was never meant to be a nine to five, because I work at 100,000 miles a minute and then get bored really fast. I have self-diagnosed with ADHD, and I do have dyslexia. So my neuro-diverse brain just can't, like, sustain… I'm not allowed to fit in a box, nor should anyone. So that's kind of how I started after my… I went on maternity leave with my daughter. And I realized that I was not happy. I tried to like break myself back into the norm because we're brought up to be told, like go to university, go work nine to five, and all was great. So I was following the trend of what we're supposed to do. And when I was after maternity leave, I just my part of my one brain would be like— you need to go work nine to five. And another side of me was like, I absolutely do not like it. So why am I keep on constantly putting this VA business that I kind of started on the side hustle… why do I keep pushing it off, keep pushing it off. And what actually kind of really pushed me more forward than anything was my stepdad passed. And I was like, You know what, life is too short. Let's just like jump in both feet, like right before COVID. Let's just jump in both feet and see what happens… two months after then COVID hit and I was like, well, I guess it's kind of good that I'm not in the… because I was in the I switched over the tech industry and started working more in the event industry and that went sideways. So yeah, I just felt like everything happened for a reason of my long journey to get me to how I built Crave Dynamics, but I wouldn't change it for the world because I feel that every lesson, like it helped me grow as a person and it's made me kind of who I am today. I'm also a certified business coach, imposter syndrome coach, and along my journey of building Creative Dynamics, like I mentioned that I hired mums to work from home. A lot of the mums that were coming to work with me were coming from a nine to five and struggling with that, that switch and feeling like they weren't good enough to work with clients even though they worked with big corporations and/or in the tech industry. So I ended up realizing I had to be more of a coach/mentor with them, and even work on impostor syndrome, as well, to kind of get some of them to where they are today, and not taking all the credit, because they're the ones who put themselves out there to… assist if they need it.   Shelby 05:17 Ah, and that's so beautiful. And I really feel like the virtual world is such an amazing place, especially for moms that are looking to make that switch. I know, it's, personally, I'm a single mom, for the most part. So I can totally relate to that fear of taking those skills from your nine-to-five corporate kind of service position, and actually, switching gears into being your own boss going out on your own, taking the skills and things you've learned and applying them for yourself is scary, especially because there goes your security financially as well, you don't have that either monthly salary or bi-weekly paycheck constantly coming in, then you're really having to hustle and open up all these other windows and doors to kind of lead you down these paths to success, but no, that is such a great thing to hear that you're in that space to be able to mentor and kind of coach other women through that little phase of— this is something I really want to do, but I'm scared to take that first step into actually doing something for me that will then benefit my family, my household, whatever it may be. But what got you into that kind of coaching? Do you do kind of have some background education that you went and took with that as well? Or…  Brittney 06:49 Yeah, so I went through a certified coaching program, which made you a certified business coach. And so it was a very intensive program. And then I'm also went through the ICF, as well. So I'm like international, federally, whichever they would like, a lot of people don't really know a lot of… my journey, I really pushed very hard, I'm the kind of person that goes big or go home kind of mentality. And then I actually wrote my paper, my final paper on like kind of what I was building and kind of the symptoms of imposter syndrome and all that, and so I end up doing a lot of research, and I stumbled upon Dr. Valerie Young, who I took my imposter syndrome course seeing with and if you research her, she's just really cool in like digging in deep on impostor syndrome and building the way to help us coaches to work with those who have imposter syndrome.  Shelby 07:50 Oh, that is so beautiful. Brittney 07:51 I just find like… impostor syndrome right now, I feel like more and more people are talking about it. And that's what I love. Because the biggest thing to get rid of impostor syndrome is to normalize it and talk more about it. And so I am so excited to kind of jump more into this role as a coach, impostor syndrome coach, to just be more open about it because the more open we are about it, the more I think we're going to start shifting our mindset that we don't have to be perfect all the time.   Shelby 08:20 Exactly. And I feel like that is so key, and having you kind of evolved from where you were, and you started kind of in the tech industry, with your nine to five to where you are now is just such a beautiful, transformational journey, which is just super exciting. I feel like everybody who is in business or is an entrepreneur has dealt with impostor syndrome at some point, whether that's chronic, or it's kind of one of those pops up every once in a while, and some high-stress situations or whatnot, but I think that having somebody who you can work alongside who will be that coach and that guiding light to kind of be that person that's standing there beside you. And being a sidekick. Like you kind of said to guide you through those moments and be able to really see through that it's just… a funny thing that our brain kind of ends up tricking us into, is thinking that, you know, we're not good enough for not well versed or educated on a certain topic to be speaking about it, or if we really have the skill set that we said in our resume that we have, and we know we're capable, but are we capable? Yeah, it just it goes on. So kudos to you for that. That's a big step.  Brittney 09:46 Yeah, I'm really excited to just be jumping more into it and working with more because I just I, I love to see everybody grow and collaborate and work together. I don't believe in competition. I know a lot of people, especially my marketing friends, I have my BBA in marketing communications, you know, like the whole SWOT analysis, look at your competitors… I really feel that we're all here to come together and collaborate together and work cohesively, and that's how we're all going to grow and thrive. And so if you start changing your mindset on, okay, yeah, sure, that's a competitor, but how can you work together as collaborators to kind of work side by side and grow? That's how my brain works.  Shelby 10:30 No, I, I love that, because I'm the same way, I feel like— my background, I guess, goes back into like oil and gas administration, so really high stress, really fast pace working situations, and having that little bit of, what do you call it, it was just on the tip of my tongue, I had something so good to say there, then totally lost it. Darn, that was such a good thing I had going, and now it just completely left my brain.  Brittney 11:05 Oh, yeah, just collaboration is… I think every business can grow together, I'm actually just creating a proposal for a potential new client, and I was like, they can totally collaborate with these guys, because of like, it's totally might be left centred, they might be like… this person is crazy. Yeah, I'm thinking of... so I was like, no way, and I think it's like, even though you guys are in different spectrums, in a way, how you guys have your values are so similar. And not to say that you need to go collaborate with all the people, I think you need to go back and really understand who you are as a business, what your values are too, because you want to work with… you started your business for a reason, so you want to work with people that also would work with you, not against you.  Shelby 11:55 Yeah, 100%. And I feel like that's so valuable, especially in today's age, where it's, business has now shifted from being super transactional to being more those emotional, long-term relationships that you're building within the business or outside of the business aspect. But the thing that I was going to talk about, I finally remembered after you started talking about what you were talking about, but being in the oil and gas industry, everything was just so tight-knit, very closed doors, very secretive on things and just going into business for myself now, I don't want to be that gatekeeper of knowledge. I feel that knowledge shared is knowledge that is valuable to everybody, and being able to support somebody or help somebody or guide somebody in a certain situation or with a certain task or whatever, whatever it may be, is really what does it for me nowadays, like it really fills my cup and just makes me feel so like, I'm doing a little bit extra in the world to make it a better place. Almost.  Brittney 13:10 So yeah, I actually just went to a reunion, I guess we'd say, so one of my first jobs was in, it's a company called Blackball, if you've ever heard of it was a very tight-knit kind of family when you first start working, and a lot of people are like, businesses can't be family, but certainly it felt like family, like a lot of them came to our wedding… that's where my husband and I met, and so they just did a 50th reunion for Rod because he was working there for 50 years, and also just retired. So they did this huge party, and it was so great to kind of like see familiar faces, and I was just having this conversation with one of the people that I used to work with that Ryan, who owns the business, because I had that such a good experience of working with an owner, made me realize how I also want to be as an owner, because I went from working in a very good business to very corporate tech, like, not great, very toxic, and I saw I was losing sight of like, who I was, who I wanted to be, who I also want other people around me to be, because I really think that everyone should be able to shine no matter what role they're in. And so I think like just going back and having that reflection again too on Saturday was like, even when I was up to Ryan and like… you were always my favorite boss because he just trusted the people to get the work done. And it would excel right and I think that's what as business owners and those who want to outsource and all that, like you have to have that trust. If you don't have that trust, then people are going to start to slowly…   away and not want to really work with you because you can't trust them to execute. So a lot of the VAs on my team have I've had since I started the business, a lot of them, there's a new few ones here, err, but I just I kind of do my random check-ins if they need anything, and I kind of like go away. They probably think it's really weird, like, where's Brittany?  Shelby 15:13 Here's the Tesla video if you need help, like, text me, message me whatever it is yeah. Brittney 15:16 Right. I don't like to micromanage.  Shelby 15:21 Yes, I agree. I have been in far too many positions where I myself am micromanaged. And I'm a firm believer in that whole, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. So it's like, I want to treat you how I would expect to be treated if I was in a similar position. And you know, the roles were switched per se. And yeah, it's it's a lot. But how many people do you have on your team currently… that's always exciting.  Brittney 15:50 Mm hmm. We have about ten, give or take, but then I also know like, we have a pool of others that I can outreach to if need be. Yeah. So it's not everybody on the website, per se. But I do have like a handful that I've kind of like, I don't like calling it the interview process, either. I like to make sure that, you know, at the end of the day, if we want to go meet up to have coffee or wine, we can do that.   Shelby16:17 Oh, I love that. Yes. And are most of your assistants kind of local to you then or do you have a couple that are a bit more on the remote side? And how do you kind of check in with those ones?  Brittney 16:30 Yeah, so we're all Canadian base. So I'm based in Victoria BC, so some of us are in Victoria. And then the furthest is in Nova Scotia. So we're all Canadian but from across province to province. Shelby 16:44 I love that you're literally coast to coast. That's amazing.  Brittney 16:50 Yeah, I love it. Now, that's such an amazing business model to have, is like a fellow Canadian VA, I always love when people like stay within the community, even though like community can be as large as like the province, the whole country, but being able to kind of support local moms and females that are just needing that, you know, extra little bit of income, or they want to make this their full time job. Really, that's, that's what excites me and is my goal one day to be able to build out to be a bit bigger and supporting local, here in Alberta and things like that. So that's so great to hear.  Brittney 17:30 As you say, so that you added some services to, to your, your roster, which is awesome, and so exciting.  Shelby 17:40 Yes. So slowly getting to the point, I've been doing this for almost a year and a half now. And I've finally gotten to the point where I'm like… these are the things that really excite me and like, are things I want to do on a regular basis. They're not just generally just doing emails or just doing calendar management or just doing filing or anything like that, but having that little bit of variety and having a more creative option to kind of express either my work or my client's work with is just really what excites me a lot more recently. But yeah, speaking of services, that was kind of where I was going with my question before was, what kind of services specifically or what kind of a niche do you service client-wise with your business? Brittney 18:33  Yeah, so we're service-based businesses, we don't work with E-commerce. We did start that at the beginning and then took that off the list. But really service-based businesses. So we've worked with interior designers, landscapers, construction, to, we had worked with a little bit of restaurant industry before COVID. We work with the chambers here. Yeah, so we've worked a range of industries, service-based ones. And then services that we offer like administration, marketing, CRM setups, we have our own team who also does like logos and graphic design, and we have a few others to assist with website development and branding. So, really a range, I foresee us kind of being like, in a way like your one-stop shop. Instead of going to like Upwork, we're not anything like Upwork, but come to us.   Shelby 19:28 Oh God. Brittney 19:30 …but then you have access to the team, if you're needing to do an item, so for example, I have like a coach. We also work with a lot of coaches and real estate agents. I paired, that's kind of what we do now, too, is we match you to your perfect VA or online business manager. So then I am pulling away to be more of like the business strategist and coach with entrepreneurs that come in. So I paired one particular coach with Ashley, and so Ashley does all the things in online business management specifically for this particular client, and then outsources some things over to the VA, Ryan. So then it was like online business manager, virtual assistants, which should be, if no one knows what that is, Online Business Manager is like your operations manager, like if you're in the store, overseeing all the things, making sure that the team is running efficiently, and processes are in place. So we offer that as well. It's a variety of things. And I think a lot of people get confused. And so that's why I say, if you don't know, just ask, because what I'm trying to do too is, I don't want the woman on the team to feel like they can't do what they want to do. I want them to specialize in their particular area of expertise and feel comfortable doing it, then not, so we have a lot that are like unicorns, I like to say, we have OBMs, and then virtual assistants who specifically maybe just want to focus on admin work. Yeah.  Shelby 21:00 Oh, that's so amazing. It's so refreshing to find another VA, that's kind of not specifically one industry, you kind of are open to a lot of different areas, but you've know the services, and you know how to do them well. And you're able to really be in that position to, you know, talk with the new potential client that's coming in and from that, being able to kind of match up specifically to a virtual assistant or an online business manager, and then from that umbrella that roll out a little bit more to any other of the service providers you've got on your team. But, that is so amazing. And when it comes to, I guess, working with new potential clients, how do you make sure that you're matching the correct person to that client that's coming in.   Brittney 21:57 So I listen to the client's needs. And I and then I know everybody on the team, personally and on the business level, of what they like to do, what they don't like to do and have like a, like a spreadsheet in a way. So I review that. And then really, I just kind of outreach to who I think would be the best match if they have availability to take on the client. And if they do, then I would pair them together. It's very, no API's, all me.  Shelby 22:28 Oh, nice. I know, I feel like sometimes it can get super overwhelming with the amount of programs and apps and systems that you can get running in your business to kind of simplify stuff. And in the end, there's a couple tasks where I'm like, I could get something to do this, but in the end, it's like, it's pretty basic, and I could do it myself, which I should probably start steering away from that mentality a little bit in some areas. But I'm the same in other ways where I'm like, nope, I've got my spreadsheet. I've got my form. We're good to go now.   Brittney 23:03 Yeah, I think, I think all of it's your business, right, so it's, I think some of us are a little bit type A, it's really hard to let go. I know, I'm like that. But it's… just start outsourcing small steps, and then you'll feel more comfortable once you remove those things off the plate. Like right now, what I'm doing is switching CRMs so I'm in I'm using Dubsado, but I'm switching over to Moxie. Oh, exciting. I just kind of like some of the additional features for this, like, why not put more work on my plate. The thing is, what I'm also doing right now, what I've been doing this year, though, is fixing the foundation in my business because I need to practice what I preach. I do, I work with so many business owners, and really I'm very self aware. I know my gaps in the business. And so this year, I've been kind of slowly cleaning it all up. Yeah, because I would like to outsource my stuff, I know to a certain point as well. So I just needed a better CRM to help me to get to that place. And so that's what I'm doing.  Shelby 24:06 That's always such a big endeavor to take on, especially once you've got a system like you mentioned Dubsado that's all set up, and now it's like okay, I'm going to be starting from scratch, other than the odd little bits and pieces where you can like pull a cvs file or something and just kind of re-upload or move that way. But yeah, I commend you. That is like one of those things that I feel as a business owner it's like setting yourself up or you know, walking or talking your walk, walk, talking your talk, walking your walk, one of the two. But you could be so good at doing a task for your clients, your customers, whatever it may be, but when it comes to kind of doing that for yourself, it can be so difficult to find, I guess the motivation, or the inspiration, some people may say, to really like, make the time, sit down, block out a couple of hours or a couple of days in the week, where you can really like just, nose to the grindstone get stuff done. But I can 100% relate to you with that aspect where it's just like—oh, I am the best at doing this for everybody else, but when it comes to doing it for myself, that's where I'm lacking. And like, you need to get those perfect unicorns to be able to outsource those little bits too. Brittney 25:35 Yeah, and I find like, we're all sometimes our own worst client. Like, I have a coach, I work with my coach pretty steadily. And they're like asking me all these questions and I'm like, I know I should be doing it. Yeah, it's just… I just need you to coach me, because my brain, the other part of my brain is like, no…  Shelby 25:57 Yeah, I'll get to it. Or I'm just going to do these dishes first, or this one load of laundry, or focus on this other thing, and then I'll get to it. And I don't know about you, but sometimes my mind just jumps from like, task to task constantly, where I like, never finish anything to 100%. Everything's between like, 80 and 90% complete, just, yeah, going around in circles.   Brittney 26:21 Yes, nope, can relate to that. We're building out the CRM, and it's just gonna know, I told myself, I've been practicing. I'm like, no, like, refocus, you know, this is what you need to do. This is like the missing piece. Not to say Dubsado is not good, but I do like, Moxie is a bit cheaper as well, for what I need. It's very similar to Dubsado, but it has a few extra things that... make sense, like I'm a visual person. And so my biggest thing with like, Dubsado is like when it's in project state, when a lead comes in, it has to be in project state, and like, I can't have that they're like, I can't see it, like I have to archive it, but then I forget that I've archived these people, then I forget. And then it gets lost in the pipeline of not to follow up.  Shelby 27:16 Yeah. And then one day, you wake up at 2am. And you're like, Oh, my God.  Brittney 27:20 Yeah. That's why I'm switching it has nothing to do… I'm just a visual person. So I'm very particular on what CRMs look like, and all that stuff. Yeah. So if anyone is looking for CRM, there's so many out there.   Shelby 27:34 So many, and I have been at a state of overwhelm with it. I'm still like, trying things out, because I'm just not finding the one. It's like, I'm constantly loving little bits and pieces. Sounds like you can relate to this too, but it's not the bits and pieces all in one nice app. And I don't want to have to be jumping between two and three, five different apps to get a task done or be able to track things. And fill something out here, then jump to here to get the report and do this. So I'm definitely now going to be checking out Moxie to see what that one's all about. And especially knowing that you're Canadian, and it works in Canada. I don't know. If you found difficulties with some of these programs. It's all ridiculously US-priced per month, and that extra 30% is…can be a killer. Right?  Brittney 28:40 That's Moxie is half the price, I think and like unless you want to add teams, and it ends up working out to what the full price is for Dubsado, so yeah, it's pretty good. I'm liking it this far that I've seen, and I'm all about like customer service too. And they've only just started I believe, like, this year which usually I don't like to switch to things that… Yeah, right. You just never know but I love that they're so customer service focus like I asked… this is why I don't do things with kids running in the background— I was uploading my contacts, but I accidentally uploaded it into projects, after archive this all and then they're like don't worry, we'll clean it up for you. It's like…  upload to the right section.  Shelby 29:33 Yeah, it's like please slow down. And I think we just get so hyped up sometimes to where we're just like, okay, I gotta get this done super quick. I gotta move and we ourselves, when it's stuff for us… forget steps, let things slide, hit wrong buttons, make more work than we need to. And yeah, it's one of those… I guess I'll take this as a learning curve, lessons learned.   Brittney 30:00 Yeah right. And then I'm still looking more into this, but has like, request tickets and stuff like that. I thought it was a neat feature to kind of send to clients as well.  Shelby 30:12 That's awesome. So they can see like status updates and stuff. Yeah, that's amazing.   Brittney 30:19 Kind of it's the more I've been playing with it, the more I've been pretty impressed, so, and it goes on your phone that the biggest thing for me… Shelby 30:30 Oh, having a mobile app that I've found is super important. I've ran into a couple programs where it's like, no, we have an app, but you can't do anything in the app, you have to use the desktop version. And I'm just like… what is the point of having an app if I can't do anything in you? Like, I just want to sit at my son's hockey game and like pound something out really quick here, but… Brittney 30:50 No, exactly. Because I've had some issues, that triggers wouldn't go. And then I'd be out somewhere and be like, Well, it'd be nice if I can just log in and push it out. But yeah, yeah, I like the feature. Anything that is added to your phone is also another win for me.  Shelby 31:09 Yes, that's definitely on my high, top priority lists of almost must haves when it comes to technology, and there's just so much out there. And being able to find that like, unicorn in the rough and especially depending on what your business is providing, like, if there's VAs out there that do more of the social media aspect, that's a whole another can of worms, when it comes to applications and programs, then you've got the ones that are the website builders, or they specialize in doing those things. There's so many, so many things. But that's why you hire somebody like us to help you out with all of those tasks.   Brittney 31:54 100%. Like, this is the stuff that I do as well. So it's like, it's hard for me to outsource to someone on my team, because I do all this CRM stuff. We actually do a lot of audits with clients as well. And we can see that they're not utilizing their CRM, as much as they should be.  Shelby 32:14 Yeah, yeah. I find that a lot too. Right? Yeah. Because it can't, some, not everything needs to be fully automated. But you can have things automated in a way that makes sense. So you're coming in and doesn't get lost in the wave. Shelby 32:30 100%. Like even just those onboarding steps, or just follow-up messages, it doesn't have to be a robotic system by any means and make it feel, I guess, just that virtual sterile, almost robotic, where there's that no personal aspect, it's that obvious copy and pasted auto reply that comes through. So being able to just get those like five to ten key areas nailed down where you can have a really smooth system with that and still be able to add in that little bit of a personal touch. But yeah, I know, there's lots of businesses out there that aren't utilizing their CRMs to their full potential. They're using it just to track, kind of clients or the pipelines, but then they're using a whole different program for email marketing, or just marketing in general, or another program that is tracking their social media analytics when a good majority of CRMs out there from what I've found, I know it kind of varies from what you need, but can do all of that and then some all in one nice, place so you don't have to be remembering all those logins or jumping from app to app and running into that… oh, they don't have a mobile app. Now. I gotta wait till I get home to be able to utilize my desktop and yes, on and on and on.   Brittney 33:54 Yes, we have. Because we are business owners, we wear many hats. So it's nice to get some things off the list, even if it's automated to a certain point. So like, I built, I just knew what a CRM could do. So when I had my daughter, like, while I was building the business, I made sure so much was automated as much as possible to help you kind of get through the process.  Shelby 34:20 Yeah, and there's always that, you know, a time and a place for that and especially for people who want to go on like vacations and they're not wanting to be involved in the business as heavily as they would if they were at home working, being able to get those like nice automation so aspects can at least run in the background for you and whether that's generating leads and clients or if that's processing the financial aspects such as your invoicing and making sure that everything is kind of automatically flowing that way. It's there's always a time and a place, and especially being a new mom, I if I was in the entrepreneur world back when my guy was born, he's ten now, but, definitely would have been something that would have been my main priority is setting up those automations getting that foundation set so I can put in a lot of time in the beginning to get it set to perfection or as perfect as technology can be, and just kind of set it and forget it in a sense so that I can then buy back my time to be able to spend with my family or with my son and things like that doing other things that I enjoy.  Brittney 35:44 It’s so true, I have a five and two-year-old so they keep me busy and even too like, I feel like I'm just starting, like I was super pumped that my daughter was going into kindergarten because I was like, oh, yeah, one less bill. But then I didn't really think of like, oh, maybe we didn't need. I didn't realize kindergarten was only from nine to two. So it was like, oh, so only have really five hours on a day to get work.   Shelby 36:00 Yeah. And then you've got the back and forth pickup in the drop off that you take into account too, so it's really like a four, maybe, four and a half. Yeah, so you don't have anything else pop up unexpectedly.  Brittney 36:15 Exactly. Right. So it's just, it's just a different dynamic. I just, we only just got like, really full time care in January this year, and then it just kind of, I just feel like we were going a little backwards. But I think as a mum entrepreneur, sometimes having like, maybe a different minds switch, when these moments happen, helps you kind of keep pushing forward. Because sometimes these kind of hurdles that might get away can be daunting to a lot. And then a lot may be like, Well, why should I keep doing this? Why am I doing X, Y and Z? Maybe I should go back into nine to five, all these things. But I… persistence is key, and switching your mindset when you have your low moments really helps you keep moving forward.  Shelby 37:06 Yes, 100, 100%. I could not agree more. And I feel that, yeah, just like you mentioned there, having that entrepreneurial mindset that those hurdles that we may come across in the family work life are easier to tackle because we've done similar troubleshooting in our business. And we're able to kind of relate that experience a bit more into our home life. It's not necessarily meshing your work life and upsetting that nice balance that everybody wants, but being able to utilize those skills and those experiences that you use in your business and being able to kind of twist them and play them back in your personal family life, I think makes things a lot easier. I know there's a lot of people where, you know, it takes time, obviously, for that skill to be able to relate those two things together to build on that. But it's one of those moments where once you finally click and like understand that you can take that knowledge and reapply it in different areas that it's completely life-changing for how you deal with situations after that.   Brittney 38:15 Yep. I can't agree more. I just, I finally, the journey of all the things that makes you have a sense, a different perspective on life as a parent, entrepreneur, business owner, all the things that— life is too short, and it's nice to know that I can go pick up my kiddos and drop them off if needed even know right now my daughter is like, I want to take the bus and like   Shelby 38:42 Yeah. The slowly outgrowing your attention phase.  Brittney 38:45 I was like, You're not even like… you're five going on thirteen already. And like… Shelby 38:52 Yeah, it's like I'm not mentally ready for this.   Brittney 38:57 Like, I want to drive you and drop you off. Can't you wait to next make me feel like this.  Shelby 39:08 Oh my god. Kids are so special. And that's one of the beautiful things that I love about being an entrepreneur too is having that, i'm home when my son gets off school, like we're very fortunate his school is within walking distance from where we are— so amazing. Being able to have that. I didn't realize when I was working my nine to five how important that was to me, I think because I was just so hyper focused on… this is the routine, you go home, you make dinner, you clean up, you go to bed, you wake up, you go to work, repeat and just you get stuck in that tornado cycle. But now I don't have to feel that anxiety when I get a phone call from the school saying your son is sick and you've got to come pick him up and I've got to be like, well, I've got to go and I know I've only been here like an hour and a half, but I don't know if I'm coming back for the rest of the week, so I will keep you posted, and that fear of… Brittney 40:06 …am I going to get fired? Shelby 40:09 Are the next words out of their mouth… gonna fire me? Yes. So it's like, ah, the flexibility, and he's at a great age, he's super independent now, so it's like I have in that free time and not feeling stressed about, you know, having to entertain him necessarily all the time. He's out there running around the neighborhood with friends, and he can make his own kind of snacks and things, so it's like, this is the life that I love. Yeah, we're in the vicinity. And I love being near you. But I love being able to get my work done at the same time. It's just been such a beautiful opportunity. I can barely put it into words sometimes.   Brittney 40:52 I feel like I had some time to get there.   Shelby 40:55 Yeah, that that will come. But enjoy. Obviously, the moment you have now, as cliche as that sounds, I, there's times where I'm like, I kind of miss when you're a baby, and you like didn't talk and ask me like sixteen million questions a day and… have you had a good sleep schedule, and you didn't argue, but I'm like, I wouldn't change it for the world. But yes, it's coming. And it'll be a glorious moment to have more than five to six hours to do some work. That's kind of been one of my favorite things.   Brittney 41:30 Well, that's like another thing. Oh, just going back to feeling that instant anxiety of thinking that you're going to get fired from a job. I don't think any parent should feel like that. When you're, you're a parent, you have to do, unfortunately drop things to go pick up your kids when they're sick, or whichever. Like, I keep saying this over and over again. I probably would have been fired like 200 times now. For the amount of times I've had to drop what I'm doing to go get the kids from daycare. So the daycare that they're at, like if one kids sick, and both have to come home. And Hudson’s two, so he's still going through the, he's a true COVID baby like born during COVID. So he's like, all the, all the different things that are going on now the world is sick all the time. So I felt so bad for my daughter because he was always sick. So she always had to come home. So they literally were, so technically, they started in daycare, this one in September. Yeah, they were home more than they were at that daycare. That's why I said… Shelby 42:35 And how frustrating is that sometimes like, just as a parent where you're like, I'm paying for like a month, and you're there for very, very little amount of time unless they give you like little refunds or whatever. But I don't think so.  Brittney 42:51 I don’t think I’ve ever heard of any company to give refunds.Yeah, I don't know. I seriously don't know how parents do it today that work nine to five. I praise you because I know for a fact that, especially if I was at a company, I probably would have been let go within like, oh, you're out?  Shelby 43:13 Yeah, exactly. And it's, I'm sure it's like this huge fear of like other people as well. It might not just be like family, like they've got a child that's sick, they may have a parent that is aging that they have to take care of outside of like their nine to five, where something may come up there or, you know, heaven forbid that something happens at home and just that dread at overwhelm of guilt, I guess, because you're not performing and not able to do what they hired you to do. Regardless, if you love or hate your job, I guess you know, you want to make, you want to complete your work, or I'd hope you do. But then that internal battle of like knowing family is number one and making them that one, number one priority, and not feeling guilty about saying, you know, I've gotta go, I've got to deal with this. And I think that's something that a lot of women struggle, I'm sure that men struggle with similar situations as well. But it's a sad place to be that we have to like, feel that we need to have that guilt in order to kind of move through that situation almost. Yeah, exactly. I really hope things change differently in the world of a regular nine to five. I personally just think I keep saying this. In the, in the next generations to come, we're just going to see more kids wanting to be entrepreneurs and doing their own thing than working in nine to five corporate lifestyle, like that the life of a corporate style. It's dying. It's dying. Yeah. So for those who are employers just listening, change your mindset a little bit, because they already, you can already see people are saying it's a hard time to hire employees. It's because we're tired of being treated this way. So that's why we're now doing our own thing, because we were never able to be in a flexible place, so if you're in the corporate world, I think they need to have that change of how can we make this more flexible? Because as long as your work is being done, you shouldn't have to question if the person… Shelby 45:32 100%. I agree so, so much with that. I feel it's all about the performance, and if the work is getting done, why should it matter if you are sitting in an office that's 15 kilometres away from your house, or if you're sitting in your bed, working on a laptop doing the exact same thing? I think that one benefit of, I guess the pandemic and COVID period that we kind of got was the fact that it took a real shift in the workplace, where we went from being that nine to five, you're in the workplace for Monday through Friday, for the next 35 years of your life, maybe 45 now, because of the way pensions and everything are going. But it really pushed the virtual hybrid working experience, and it really, I think, showed a lot of people that I don't need to be in this big building with all these random people doing this work, when I can easily do it at home, like technology got such a big push at that time. Like Zoom, for instance, I didn't even know that was a platform until like COVID happened, and all of a sudden, everybody in their mind has a Zoom account. That was just wild.  Brittney 46:52 I think it also pushed people's perspective too, in just the, the trust that employers had maybe on their employees, and it was kind of given to them and then taken away in some kind of capacity. And I think it's just to the point where we all had enough… we're just going to do our own thing, because you promised X, Y and Z, we went online, you can see that we can do work online, and then you, now that the world's open up again, you switched it, that we have to be in office, because of… I think people are just fed up, and they just want to do their own thing. I know so many people that are looking for jobs in nine-to-five, but they have to promise them that they can work from home to a certain capacity.  Shelby 47:37 Yeah, it's either remote work 100% or remote hybrid with favouring more stay-at-home opportunities, maybe come into the office one day out of the week, for four or five hours. It doesn't have to be a full day. But yeah, it really did push a nice flexibility and kind of a woke people up into technology, workspace revolution, I guess in a sense, where people are like, You know what we can 100% do this from home. We're living in 2023, 2020 to 2023 at that time, but we have the technology, and now we're finally starting to like, be more vocal about it, express how it is improving mental health in the workforce, like there are countless positives that have come through with this. And in the end, it's beneficial to not only the employees or the workers, but also to the corporations and big companies. As you know, you can then downsize a little bit on what you're paying on office space that you're either leasing or renting or using. And from that comes a lower power bill or energy bill or heating bill because everybody is just responsible for their own because they’re working at home like the, I could go on and on about the cost-saving measures of this virtual world we're living in because it's just so powerful. But… yeah, it's been amazing to see like, those little positive notes that came out of that little chapter in the world. It's one of the things that I try and bring up as a positive— the whole thing can be seen on multiple sides on positives and negatives, but always bring it back to that little positive— it’s nice.  Brittney 49:30 Yes, yes, definitely. Oh, yes.  Shelby 49:35 What a great conversation we have had. I am just, uh, I could honestly keep going for another several hours Brittany, honestly, it's been so fabulous talking to you today. Again, I appreciate you so much for being my guest on She's Got This: A Journey to Success, and I cannot wait to see what the reaction for this episode is and to see where you take your business and kind of where you go in the future. I'm really looking forward to staying in touch with you and, yeah helping each other out later down the road. So thank you.  Brittney 50:12 Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Mental Health advocacy in Entrepreneurship with Jenn Betts

In this episode, Shelby addresses the issue of mental health for entrepreneurs. Shelby is joined by Jenn Betts, Registered Psychologist, Founder, and CEO of the Calgary Institute of Counselling. Shelby and Jenn discuss the importance of addressing mental health in both our personal and professional lives; Jenn promotes the idea that we are not on this journey alone and that we thrive when we have the right team to support us on both a personal and professional level.  Jenn discusses her profession as a psychologist and the belief that to serve their clients properly, psychologists need to find support and counselling to deal with their own mental health. She also discusses the difficulty female entrepreneurs experience, wearing multiple hats as mothers, wives, and business people. Through her own journey of entrepreneurship, which she started just before the pandemic, she learned that business owners need the support of a team to help them on their journey. While a business coach can help with professional growth, nurturing and caring for your own physical and mental health is key to success.  Shelby and Jenn discuss mental health in the workplace and helpful steps to support employees at work. Betts suggests that while we are now openly talking about mental health, we are still a long way from implementing proper measures to promote it. She recommends providing employees with access to psychological support and offering long-term help when needed. Team-building exercises, company events, and even small gestures to acknowledge and show appreciation for employees can improve their mental health and boost morale, allowing them to live happier, more fulfilled lives. About Jenn Betts  Jenn Betts is the Founder and CEO of the Calgary Institute of Counselling. With over a decade of experience in counselling, she leads a team of psychologists who strive to bring impactful change to the lives of their clients.  Jenn takes an empathetic and collaborative approach in her practice and creates a place of emotional safety for her clients. Her training includes Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Emotion Focused Therapy, and Gottman Couples Counselling and she provides therapy for individuals as well as couples. Jenn is passionate about moving mental health from simply a conversation to more concrete action to generate significant change in the wider community. She advocates for more mental support for society as a whole and consults with businesses, educational establishments, and faith organizations to incorporate mental health into their culture.  -- Contact Shelby Joines | Joines Administration:  * Website: JoinesAdministration.ca [https://www.joinesadministration.ca/] * LinkedIn: Joines Administration [https://www.linkedin.com/company/joines-administration/] * Instagram: @JoinesAdministration [https://www.instagram.com/joinesadministration/] * Facebook: @JoinesAdministration [https://www.facebook.com/JoinesAdministration] Contact Jenn Betts | Calgary Institute of Counselling:  * Website: counsellinginstitute.ca [https://counsellinginstitute.ca/] * Instagram: @counsellinginstitute [https://www.instagram.com/counsellinginstitute/] * Facebook: @counsellinginstitute [https://www.facebook.com/counsellinginstitute.ca/] * LinkedIn: Calgary Institute of Counselling [https://www.linkedin.com/company/calgary-institute-of-counselling/about/?viewAsMember=true] -- Transcript Shelby 00:07 Hello, and welcome back everybody to another amazing episode on she's got this a journey to success. Now this is a great and exciting episode today because we have a guest joining us. Jenn Betts with the Calgary Institute of Counseling will be coming on with us and sharing a whole bunch of insight about how having a solid support team behind you as an entrepreneur is crucial to keeping your mental health wellness in check. So don't go anywhere. We're going to start diving into all of this right now. Shelby 00:46 Okay, we have our special guest Jenn Betts here today, I am so thrilled to have you as a guest on my podcast, “She's Got This: A Journey to Success” today. I have been a huge follower of you on Instagram and with the beauty of social media, we were able to connect and get an amazing episode together for our listeners and share some insanely beautiful and important knowledge when it comes to mental health and all things seeking that little bit of extra support outside of your business and bringing that in. So Jen, what can you tell me about yourself? Let's do a little bit of an introduction… how you started getting into this sphere of work… who you are, all the goodies.  Jenn 01:38 Oh, thanks so much for having me, Shelby, I'm really happy to be here. I'm so happy to be talking about mental health today. My journey as a psychologist started many, many years ago. I took a BA in psychology and then was working with some clients and they were facing unplanned pregnancies. And I can clearly remember the moment when all of a sudden I felt stuck with these teenage girls that were getting pregnant, didn't know what to do, and I was like, giving them clothing, giving them food bank hampers… that is not going to help them in the long run. We need to figure out where all this is coming from, why are they getting pregnant at 13? What is happening here? And so then I realized I needed to go back and get my master's. So I went back, got my master's, then registered as a psychologist, worked at an agency as a contractor for six or seven years. Then I realized something in the mental health world needed to change. I myself have seen a lot of terrible psychologists out there. There's a problem in every field, right? Like there's… in hairdressing, as a lawyer, whatever it is, right? There's always those bad apples. And so I realized I needed to start an agency. I needed to train up strong and ethical psychologists. I was tired of hearing my clients saying I went to so and so psychologists, and they actually really hurt me. I was tired of psychologists saying to me, I don't know how to help you. Some other really frightening things that were said to me, and so I started up an agency. At our agency, we ensure training for all psychologists, we have team meetings, we have supervision for all because people need to follow their ethics, people need to be strong and competent in what they're doing, so we have a really high standard at our agency. And thankfully, everyone is up to that challenge of the high standard because there are things that need to change in this world when it comes to counseling. And I'm going to be that catalyst for change.  Shelby 03:42 And that's so important. And I think that people also don't realize that, you know, sometimes the therapists, the psychologists, whatever kind of profession in that field, it may be, they also need to support in order to be the best that they can for their clients as well. I can only imagine, and kind of as you briefly mentioned before, the stories that they have to hear from their clients, the traumas that they help them kind of rebuild, and how that has a personal effect on them as well. And just even from my personal experience, having or finding that support in either a psychologist or a counselor or whatever it may be, can be one of the most difficult things that a person can do because, you know, depending on what you're needing that support with and then help with, it may be several sessions just to scrape the surface of why you're there, just to find out that they're not the right fit, and you have to go back to the drawing board, and kind of you're constantly reliving and just scraping that scab of traumas and things that are going on in your life and never really getting it fully healed and just letting it fester while you do your big journey but… Jenn 05:02  Exactly. Well, you're exactly right. At our agency, and most agencies, they do have 20-minute consults. But in those 20-minute consults, it's important to ask lots of questions, to ask what their training is, to ask what their background is, what their specialties are. I think it's also important to ask, because, like you were saying, ask a psychologist what they do for their mental health. My clinical director, Michelle, at the agency, she is big on teaching everyone that you, as a psychologist, you are the tool, like when you go to a hairdresser, the tool is the scissors, right? Yeah, but we are the tool. And we have our own traumas, we get into this because we are rescuers by nature, we want to help. But that hurt for a lot of psychologists. And so I strongly recommend, and I think most of my psychologists attend therapy themselves. We call it countertransference. And so we get triggered in session, if you're talking about your mom or your dad, I have stuff with my mom and dad, and then maybe I get triggered, right? And then I can't do as good of a job. So it's incredibly important that psychologists themselves go to a psychologist as well, because we can't solve our problems ourselves. I remember clients have laughed at me and said, why, it's like, you can't solve your problems yourself. No, I absolutely can't. No one can. And so I regularly see a psychologist, I have counselors here that also regularly see a psychologist. Because, yes, the load is very heavy. As you get more experienced in the field, you do learn to leave it all behind. It gets easier as time goes on. And I've gotten to that point that I can absolutely leave everything behind. But in the beginning, that's tough. But you also have to work on your own stuff. If what I say to my psychologists is, if you can't see it in yourself, your unhealthy coping mechanisms, or whatever it may be, you are never going to see that in a client, and you'll never be able to fix that in a client, if you can't see it in yourself. So I believe that all psychologists need to go to therapy, unfortunately, all don't. And to me, that seems a little hypocritical. But I believe it's incredibly important for people to take care of their own health, if they're working with the health of other people as well.  Shelby 07:16 Absolutely, it's so important and like, kind of coming around full circle being in the profession, in general, your kind of calling in life is that support role you want to be there. So I am sure that there are a lot of psychologists and counselors and others in that field that are very empathetic by nature, and they kind of will bring in and hold on to that client energy and everybody needs that little bit of a safe space, or that third party that doesn't know all the details to just be able to put all that extra emotion from kind of pulling in from clients and their stories and being able to bottle that up and or not bottle it up, I guess but deal with it, manage it and you know, kind of be productive and healthy. In a sense, I feel like the mental health aspect is extremely overlooked, especially in the world of entrepreneurship, small businesses, owning, running, managing multiple streams of income, whatever it may be, we all think that we can take it all on, deal with it all ourselves, we're all kind of that focused on the money hungry and worried about the physical health of our business. And then the secondary health of ourselves. But that's from most of the people I talked to is very low on the list. And then the mental health aspect to it is even lower than that 90% of the time, if not more, but just the importance of having that. Not even like people have business coaches, right, they get those people to help them kind of guide through their business, what the plan is, how to set their goals realistically, and so on and so forth. But on top of that, a business coach can only take you so far. And they are focused mainly on the business, the financials, the numbers, the progress, where the entrepreneurs and the small business owners overlook the importance of actually having a psychologist or a counselor or somebody in the mental health field where they can actually discuss things a little more openly and freely without the judgment of their business reputation coming into play and leading into a whole new tailspin of anxieties and overwhelm that come from that. So yeah. Jenn 09;37 Exactly. I have business coaches, and I think they are absolutely wonderful and they have helped me with my business. But nothing has helped me scale my business and getting my mental health in check. I opened this business January 2020. I was pregnant. The world shut down two months later, it was… Shelby 09:56 Great time. Jenn 09:57 The last few years have been pretty awful. I will be honest, being a business owner during a pandemic is not something you wish on your greatest enemy. My husband lost his job, we had a two-and-a-half-year-old who could not go to daycare anymore. My husband… long story short, couldn't do his job… like it was just impossible for him to do during the pandemic. So he took care of our daughter in the basement, and I worked my butt off to save our business up on the main floor, seeing as many clients as I could all that kind of stuff, had my baby in July 2020, took a month off, completely stepped away for the business for a month and then went right back into it in August, and it has been a tailspin, I'll be completely honest, the last few years, I… long story short, I9 found out my body doesn't actually produce vitamin B. So I'm getting my mental health in check and my naturopath has been my saving grace lately. But I've worked a lot on my inner game, I will call it a lot of business owners who want to scale and nothing will help you scale more than getting your emotional and mental health in check. My business is starting to scale more, because I'm getting my mental health and emotional health in check. I'm figuring everything out when it comes to an emotional standpoint of running a business, management, all of that. And because of that, my business is really starting to work. I forget what the quote is exactly, but it's like 90 - 95% of businesses fail in the first five years. And I completely understand why. But since I have got my emotional and mental health game in check, things have changed. And so in my opinion, you cannot be a healthy business owner, you cannot scale properly if you do not get your emotional and mental health in check. It just becomes a panic frantic rat race and it does not need to be that way. I have been there, 100% I have been there, but it does not need to be that way.  Shelby 12:06 Exactly. And I think people are constantly looking when they're at that awkward moment of growth where they're like… I need to scale or I'm gonna fall down, like there is no in-between, that they only focus on the how do I get more clients? How do I gain more revenue coming in? How can I sell more products or my services, and they're looking at it through the eye of I guess, a corporate lens in a sense where it's all about the money, it's the numbers on the spreadsheet, it's the transactions, but they don't look at the inner work and the holistic work that needs to go into themselves to be able to have that clear vision and that healthy vision and just healthy internal processes that go along with it. I think the mental health and the mindset and the internal body work and mind work gets extremely overlooked in the entrepreneurial world. I know, a good portion of the entrepreneurs that I know today were once in a completely different area in the corporate sector, whether that was healthcare, oil and gas construction, trades work, anything along those lines, but they go into it with a mindset of it’s business, and they don't think that themselves as a person holistically have as big of an impact on their business as they do.  Jenn 13:33 Yes, exactly. And just like Michelle, my clinical director says that, as a psychologist, you are the tool. That's the same thing with being an entrepreneur. You are the one that's doing the work. And it's going to catch up to you if you don't pay attention, if you don't take care of yourself. I had a pretty awful summer, I'm pretty open about my life. Like there there just doesn't need to be shame, like life is life, right? We all struggle but I was flat on my back most of the summer. Again, like I found out my body does not produce vitamin B correctly. So I'm getting adrenal shots because I've had everything from fatty liver disease, adrenal fatigue, low iron, low vitamin B, you name it. I've had all of that and literally I wasn't able to stay awake each day, and so I would nap each day. I'm finally feeling better. My naturopath again has been my saving grace. That's what entrepreneurs need is a team around them, and I will never ever let go of my team ever again. I will stay in therapy. I will stay in contact with my naturopath, all of that, but I can promise you it is not worth it. The money is not worth it. I have never been more thankful for my health and my family it scared me this summer because I pushed and pushed and pushed so hard and was anxious and needing to make sure I had the money, and needing to provide the best life for my family and all these things, right? But that is not what this is about. What they talk about nowadays for young entrepreneurs I’ll say, is it's not about money, so much as it is about time. Like, I get to pick up my daughter every day at school at 2.30, that is more of a blessing to me than having 1000s of dollars in my bank account, right, like time with my family, the ability to go to an appointment with my naturopath during the middle of the afternoon, or whatever it may be. That, to me is what matters. Yes, I absolutely want to create wealth for my family, and all of that, but if you do not take care of yourself, you're gonna end up flat on your face like I did. The only way to be successful is to take care of yourself, because you are the one that is in charge of everything, you're at the top of it all. And if you aren't healthy, your business won’t be healthy, and I've seen that clearly in my life.  Shelby 16:04 And it's so true, like just kind of circling back to where we started with that when I kind of started this virtual administrative journey that I'm on now, I had finished, like 16 years in oil and gas, and you and I have kind of had a few conversations on Instagram and in meetings and stuff about this. But just being in such a wild and unpredictable environment for such a long time and really getting into supporting high-level executives right out of the gate after I'd finished my education and administration. Not setting healthy boundaries for myself and going right in as being like the yes man to everything and anything that people would ask of me, turning into like that 24/7 executive assistant that's working on salary and not going anywhere. But it too had led to a point where my health had taken like a huge turn before I'd gotten into this virtual reality of administration, pretty much. My kidneys were on the verge of shutting down, my liver, my cortisol levels were like off the charts. But like you, thank God for natural paths and being able to figure out that like, perfect little vitamin mixture that just replaced any type of prescriptions that I was taking at the time, and you feel so much better and healthier, but at the time, you don't realize people talk about burnout all the time. They talk about what the signs and the symptoms are, but when you get to a point of being so burnt out, you're just running on empty and fumes all the time it gets to be your blinders are on to your own well-being and mental health, and in the end, I too fell flat on my face for a couple months wondering if like, am I going back to school? Is this where I want to be? What do I wanna do with my life, and you just hit a hole, like a wall at a certain point in your life where you're like, I need to really switch gears here, or this path is just going to be a nasty couple of years coming up. But, I guess, yeah, it's wild. But with that, what are some things that female entrepreneurs or business owners just in general, can do to prioritize their mental health while trying to scale a successful business? Yeah, like I said, you have to have a team around you. Jenn 18:33 Yeah, like I said, you have to have a team around you. I had a personal trainer for a while. That helped me lose a bunch of weight I had to lose. I lost about 20 pounds in order to fix my fatty liver because I emotionally ate for the last three years. I did not deal well with things. My psychologist was mainly online during the pandemic. And it just was not helpful. I couldn't get anything from online therapy, so I did not have a team around me. I'm now seeing a different psychologist because I'm dealing with like business and parenting and like all that kind of stuff.  Shelby 19.10 Newer aspects with life too… Jenn 19:18 Exactly and I see her regularly, and when I don't have a session booked with her, I can tell. And so I book regularly with her now, even if things are going well, because I need that constant support. I need to see my naturopath regularly. I also had cortisol levels that were through the frickin roof, like you name it I had it. And so if I don't have that team around me like a personal trainer, a naturopath, a psychologist, I am again going to fall flat on my face. I'm feeling great now. Things have changed pretty quickly, and in like about three months it took for things to go from not being able to stay awake during the day to feeling great. And yes, I understand that that takes money. I absolutely do. And like, that's the great thing about being an entrepreneur. But if you want more money, you have to take care of your health, you need to be able to talk about it, you need to be able to surround yourselves with like-minded people. I have a new friend that I've made recently, and she's an entrepreneur as well. And she has big ambitions like me, and I'm able to share all my fears, regardless of how silly they sound. I just text her everything that's in my brain. I don't even tell my husband everything that's in my brain because he doesn't get it. Not a mom. He's not a business owner, all those kinds of things, but this woman is a mom, she's a, she's a business owner, she's a high functioning entrepreneur, all these things. And so you have to have people in your corner, just like a boxer has people in their corner, they have, you know, the people that clean up their wounds, or give them water or coach, like they have all these people in their corner. Yeah. And they can’t fight if they don't have people in their corner. And so I think it's totally possible to scale and be that high-functioning executive. But you can't do it if you're not taking care of your health. Like I talked to the CEO of Calgary Counseling Center, the biggest agency here in Calgary that I'm modeling myself after a bit, and her exercises in the morning that she does on the treadmill, or whatever it may be is non-negotiable. She knows nobody can bump that for a meeting, no one can bother her during that time. And I for a while I was doing that exercising regularly that my health got so bad this summer, I couldn't do it. But there are things that need to be non-negotiable in your life, a healthy diet, whatever it may be, those things have to be non-negotiable in your life. Again, I very much understand that that takes money, but that is a perk of your business. And so you need to use your money wisely. If you are going to scale, you have to do it properly. 22:09 Shelby Absolutely. It is so important. And I think like I mentioned several times, it's so overlooked by entrepreneurs. And really, I have a true, like, mantra that you know, it does take money to make money, and you need to know these areas of your business and your personal life and your personal health. And find these areas of non-negotiables like you were mentioning where you have to spend this money, invest in these personal development courses, invest in yourself and having a great journal that gets you excited to look at it's got a great texture, it's got a great feel it's got great prompts in it and actually gets you excited to do your morning journaling or your evening meditation before you go to bed. But being able to, you know, invest and actually plan out and find where those areas really need to be, have some plugs I guess put in where there may be some leaks and things, but it is so important to even schedule in like half an hour, 45 minutes out of your day where it is… your team knows that hey, I'm unavailable right now, this is when I do my meditation, my reflection, my weekly planning whatever it may be, but having that time and then staying consistent with it, which I know is one thing that we can all probably relate to, is just keeping consistent with these new things that we're trying to incorporate into our life to try and make things easier. I know I've been in several places where I'm like, okay, I'm on a really good journaling roll right now. It's been three weeks and then something sneaks its way into my calendar, and then everything kind of falls off the rails for a couple of months I'll say, I slowly realized that man, through those couple of months where I wasn't consistent with my journaling. I truly noticed a change in my mood, how my mind was organized during my days, how I was able to complete tasks on time, all the things, but it is one of those things you really have to prioritize that personal development, that personal growth and that personal just raw hell. Jenn 24:27 Yes, and that's the thing like we are in, we're in charge of our calendar. Like that's what I've come to realize, is like, I'm in charge of my calendar; if I can't meet someone for another two weeks, because I have my naturopath appointment at that time that I can't move or whatever it may be, that's fine. We don't have to be like I think the entrepreneur world is very much known for being frantic, male or female.  Shelby 24:51 Like have to say yes to every opportunity, right? Or you're gonna miss out. Jenn 25:00 Yeah, and you don't need to say yes to every opportunity. I'm a big believer in like, the universe brings you things that are going to help. And you, you're not going to miss out on what the universe has for you, you can absolutely self-sabotage yourself and hurt yourself, but you're not going to miss out on what the universe has for you. I think trust is a big thing as a business owner, like, yes, you have to build your business strategically and I have very much built it in a strategic manner. I have people under me that take care of a lot of work that I just frankly, don't have time for. There's too much else on my plate. But I think we need to change the belief, the mindset of like, go go, go and hustle and chase the sale and chase the dream. But I think if we just sit back and trust that everything will be okay, like I took two months off, I didn't talk really to any of my counselors this summer, and my business finally took off with me stepping back. And so I think that that was one of the most valuable lessons that I've ever learned as an entrepreneur, that we can trust that things are going to be okay.  Shelby 26:09Yes. And I feel like we are so caught up in the anxiety and the overwhelm of if I step away, everything is going to crash and burn, and it's all going to fall apart. And me being on for two weeks is in three months of cleanup, just to get back to where I was. And really building that strong team, whether it's in kind of your personal self-care world, whether naturopaths, things like that, psychologists, or if it's in the business world, where you've got a virtual assistant, you've got project managers, in your case counselors and things, knowing that they've got their roles and responsibilities, everybody has their place what they need to do, and just really taking that almost leap of faith, I guess you could call it the first time around where it's like, I'm gonna step back, and I'm really gonna say, you're all educated, and we're all adults, and we know what we're doing, and I'm going to shut down for a few days, and I'll check back in when I'm back where I need to be. But we're so terrified that that is just an impossible dream that we can achieve as entrepreneurs, when really that's the whole point, most of the time on why we got started was to be able to grow to a point where we can step back and have things automate and run themselves while we can enjoy life a bit more.  Jenn 27:35 Yep, exactly. Yeah, that's the goal. And if you don't do that, you're going to be forced to do that. That's what happened to me.  Shelby 27:44 Yeah, exactly. So I know that you started off kind of seeing patients and clients and things like that in your world, and you're in the transformative period of stepping back a bit more and kind of doing more of the education on mental health, so what do you think are… what do you see as the benefits of providing more education on the mental health sphere, either in Alberta, or Canada and North America as a whole?  Jenn 28:12 Yeah. I love seeing clients, and I still work with some of my long-term clients that I've been seeing for, oh, goodness, I can't even count now like eight, nine years, I've been seeing clients, right? Like, life happens, and we need to stick with someone that's supportive. But I think what's been interesting about the pandemic is it highlighted mental health. And so I think that that's a beautiful thing that we can see coming out of the pandemic… there was I’ll say some good that came out of the pandemic, but unfortunately, we have a mental health crisis. But right now we are okay, talking about mental health. That's what I find interesting is since the pandemic, they'll talk about mental health on the news now, they… people in conversation will talk about mental health. But people are still not taking action.  Shelby 29.06 Yeah. Jenn 29:08 That's what's frustrating. I'm very thankful that we can talk about it now that it is safe and normal in a sense, to talk about mental health, but people still aren't taking action. Like some of my friends are nervous about couples counseling, because doesn't that mean I'm going to get a divorce Jen? No, that doesn't mean you're gonna get a divorce. If you don't go to couples counseling, you are gonna get a divorce. And so there's still a lot of, I don't know what the word is, like stigma, stigma, I know…  Shelby 29:41 …the taboo almost.  Jenn 29:46 … but like, people are afraid to go to counseling, and I get it, I've been there… my first appointment like… I can still remember fighting and fighting and fighting the fact that I knew I had to go to therapy. I was in my early 20s and I knew I had to go, but I was scared. I knew I wanted to be a psychologist. But I was still scared, right? And I'm still trying to figure out what that change needs to be. I think we just need to talk more about it like, talk about like, going to see a psychologist is normal… we go to see our doctor, we go to see our naturopath… like a psychologist is no different part of the journey. And so that's why I'm wanting to step out into an education role, is we still need to talk more about it. It needs to be even more normalized. Yes, it became a more normalized thing to talk about during the pandemic, and afterward now. But I still see people that are not taking action, I still see my friends, I see relatives, whoever it may be, that are not taking action, that need to get themselves into therapy, that need to get their child into therapy, and are not doing so. It's okay to talk about their mental health, but it's still not okay to get into therapy, and so I'm really wanting to change that. I'm really wanting to change how we talk about it in the corporate world, I'm really wanting to get in with larger companies and talk about… you need to set aside, you know, benefits or money or whatever, so your staff can go to a psychologist or whatever it may be. I met with the NDP last summer, so 2022, to help them roll out their plan for universal mental health care for the election. Unfortunately, I found out a few weeks before the election, they weren't going to roll that out… that was a pretty devastating day for me because I thought finally change is gonna happen. But even the government isn't willing to go there quite yet. And I get that it's an expensive endeavor, but if anytime was right to roll out universal mental health care, it was after the pandemic, because there's such a crisis and such a need for it. And so I still don't know what it is, that is going to help people get in the door… we're now finally talking about it because so many people die from suicide, the divorce rate and infidelity rate we're seeing at the agency is through the roof… I've never seen anything like it. So yeah, I want to get into these businesses and start talking. I'm not sure what needs to change. But something needs to change. And we're gonna get to the bottom of it through education somehow.  Shelby 32:16 And I love that and I feel like especially going into the corporate sphere of things and kind of getting those bigger companies that provide up to a certain amount, which is maybe enough to cover three sessions, maybe a bit more depending on what level of psychological support you may need. Obviously, sometimes, counselors can be more affordable than psychotherapists and different scales and models, but being able to provide a healthy amount of support where the employee doesn't have to feel like I have to squeeze 20 years of life traumas and difficulties into three sessions, and hope to god cross all my fingers that I'm going to get the either results I'm looking for, or at least a handful of tools that work, that I can utilize when I come into difficult situations. But it's never enough, and personally coming from corporate and being on the side of salaried employee and a contractor, it is never easy. Like I said, whatever salary benefits you do get are never enough to do anything of true value health-wise, whether it's vision, dental, prescription, mental health, chiro, physio, you name it. And then on the other hand, as entrepreneurs and small business owners, we are not salaried employees most of the time, we have to pay out of pocket, or if we've gotten to a successful place the business will pay for benefits or you can use that as an expense or whatnot but it's never enough, and that was always the struggle…is you get so excited, like yes, I've got benefits, but then you look into the fine print of everything and it's like you might as well just not have offered me benefits in the first place because you're paying more into them even if it's only 50% than what you'd actually get out of them. So yeah, I completely…  having those conversations is so important, and to be able to either boost up those or have companies be able to provide like mental health days for their workers that aren't like one or two a year which do nothing, or just any type of seminar support, or here we've got a psychologist is coming in for the day. Everybody gets an hour session or 45 minutes to chat with them real quick, and if you need additional support, we’ll help you out, but there's so much more that we can be doing in the corporate world, and I feel like corporate mental health is really undervalued, and people don't see, depending on the industry… what the struggles are and how many people are like doing self-medication outside of work, because it's so stressful, or they're leading into drinking problems or other addiction problems, and it just ends up snowballing to a point where that person gets to be unemployed, they're on short term disability, and that may turn to long term disability, and then they're just almost useless to the workforce at that point, and… which is just so unfortunate to see that there's not enough support to get people that additional help… like don't get me wrong, there's support but not the right and the right amount to be offered to people.  Jenn 35:57 And that's exactly it. Like when you talk about the return on investment in the report I wrote for the NDP, if workers are taking care of, absenteeism goes down, sickness goes down, even hospitalization rates for like, cold and flu go down. Like it changes society. If people's mental health is taken care of, yes, it takes several years for us to see this change, but if people's mental health are taking care of the ROI is huge. And so it's just, it's fascinating to me that companies don't invest in that. Shelby 36:35 I would see it that way. It's either they're not seeing it that way, or they haven't been shown it in that way. And I feel like you going into the more of the education field of mental health, that would be an amazing point to really bat home because really, the statistics are all there. I think every time there's some kind of a census that gets done either on the municipal, provincial, or federal level here, that it's always, uh, oh, workers are getting sicker, and like, companies are claiming bankruptcy, and there's just like that output/input isn't balanced. But if they do take care of not only the physical well-being… I know, there's companies out there who will give you like gym memberships, or you get discounts to do excursions and bam, for get outside, I know, NBC doctors are able to now prescribe National Park passes as like a prescription that you can use to get out in nature and kind of boost that mental health aspect, but things like that are great, but when it comes to that mental health side, too, it's just lacking. But really, if people are healthy, they've got that extra time even those four-hour workweeks that are starting to be implemented over in Europe and stuff… companies have been coming back saying we have doubled, tripled, our revenue in this year, and we have cut down the amount of working hours that we're doing because our employees and our contractors are excited to come to work. They're happy, they're energized, because they've gotten that six hours of family time instead of maybe the hour and a half at night that they get with their families, and being able to socialize with their friends and just have this better outlook on life. So one of my biggest things would be that would be great to have here. Yeah.  Jenn 38:27 And entrepreneurs need to know that. Yes. Yeah. Like if entrepreneurs, I think figured that out, and I think I'm figuring that out, is, I need to invest financially in to buy psychologists, and so today we're having like just a connecting time where we're just hanging out I'm going to like… I found this new bakery here in Calgary, and it's like really fancy doughnuts. really fancy cookies… like it's just, it makes people feel good, right? So, I'm going to pick those up today and we're doing a team-building event. We're all going bowling at Banquet next Friday and like, we have team-building events every quarter… the more I invest into my psychologists, the greater the business grows. And so we have to invest in the care of our employees…it has to happen.  Shelby 39:18 And I think that's one of the things too that gets overlooked a lot, is that okay, I've got this team now, I just have to manage them, and micromanage or run them, and filter everything through, but nobody sees like the personal relationship building that goes into building a business as well, and the impact that those little things, like even you know, the staff members birthdays this day, you send them a quick e-card or you get them like a little $5 Starbucks card, something… it doesn't have to be huge or expensive by any means. But even those little gestures just to show that hey, I appreciate you, and really showing that appreciation and compassion. Recognition for their work, and just bonding together on more of an emotional relationship personal level rather than it being constantly business. Like I'm sure when you have your team building exercises, there may be a little bit of shop talk, but for the most part, it's like, how's your family? How was your summer? How was so and so's wedding? What are you doing this weekend like, things like that, and I feel that's one of the biggest parts too that can just be something that the average person in the office can do to kind of boost somebody else's mental health, outside of any kind of additional supports, I feel that kindness gets kind of brushed under the rug a lot nowadays… we're such a fast-moving society. And we want instant gratification and instant results and like, go go go, and there's no time to stop and… taking that moment to just say… hey, thanks for doing that. Or, hey, I appreciate you getting this to me before our kind of scheduled deadline. You know, it doesn't have to be expensive gestures or support that you go through, but really kind words can make the world of a difference in somebody's day too. Jenn 41:12 I think people want to be seen, right? And if you see them as a boss, as the entrepreneur, I think that goes a long way.  Shelby 41:22 Yeah, exactly. You want to have that nice balance of leadership, I guess more so than that boss mentality. I think in just the world of business in the last probably 15/20 years, it has really shifted from being transactional, we're counting the number of sales, you know, if you don't hit this level, then you're kind of, you know, knocked down a couple of notches where now it's the building the relationships, getting to know people on those levels, really connecting and showing that appreciation and starting from that point of, I guess, compassionate selling or soul-selling as some people may like to call it, but it's taken a huge turn and just in the world of business, I think those appreciative… and they're free. Like, things that will make somebody's day that are free. You really can't beat that. So why not just sprinkle the free compliments everywhere?  Jenn 42:27 Yeah, I would agree completely.  Shelby 42:32 Oh, it has been so great chatting with you, Jen, I've got one last question that I'd actually like to ask you, but what advice would you give to female entrepreneurs or business owners who may be struggling with their mental health right now and are kind of on the fence about seeking help?  Jenn 42:53 Mm hmm. I think it's sad that people in general, I'll say have a lot of shame about talking about their struggles. I think that women especially struggle with that. They carry all the hats. They're the mom, they're the wife, they're the house cleaner. They're the cooker, right? They're the boss, they have all the hats. And it is impossible to do all those things, well, no one can, and I think if you are going to try to do those all well and perfect, that again, you're going to fall flat on your face. And so what advice would I give that? It's such a hard question, because I'm so used to being a psychologist, right? That, for me psychology is just really, it's just such a normal thing.  Shelby 43:41 You guys are on a different path.  Jenn 43: 45 But there is no shame in asking for help. Life is hard enough, and we should never have to do life alone. I don't believe that the world was made so that we struggle alone. I am a huge believer in community. And community is what fills our cup, and in order for you to scale, you need that support. There is no shame in saying, I have a psychologist. I have a naturopath I have a business coach. Right? They're one in the same. I'm not sure where it went wrong that for some reason, it's okay to have a business coach but not a psychologist in your corner. They're one in the same. And so they're like, again, it comes back to there is no shame. No one is perfect. Everyone has weaknesses. And the more we talk about those weaknesses and bring them out to the light, the less shame that we will have. And so I think it's just about making that decision. You don't even have to tell anyone you're making that decision… that's between you and your counselor. And you just slowly start to seek support. It's going to radically change your life. I think it's completely okay to be anxious about it, but it's pushing through that fear. I told myself at the beginning, or I guess the end of last year, I'm going to walk towards anything that causes me fear, I'm not going to try to run from fear, like I've done in the past. And I think it's okay, even in the first session, lots of clients would say to me, like, I'm really scared to be here… I don't know what to talk about. And it's the job of the psychologist to lead the session, to figure out what's going on, and kind of pull those things together. It's not the client's job to figure it all out. That's why you're hiring a psychologist to do it. And so it's okay to put it all on the psychologists and say, I don't even know what to talk about today. I know I'm stressed out, but I don't know what is stressing me out. I'm scared to be here. Whatever it may be, I think it's okay to put that all on the psychologists for them to try and figure it out. You just need to show up and be your authentic self. And that's where change happens. Shelby 45:50 That's absolutely beautiful. That resonated with me at the beginning, I started getting like goosebumps and stuff, and I'm like, don't tear up, don't tear up, don't tear up. Jenn 46:02 But it's okay to tear up, right? We all grew up in life, I know.  Shelby 46:07 But I was like, you know, what is a safe space, if I end up crying, oh, my podcast with a great psychologist and everything here. Then you know what… I'm doing alright, and the whole beauty of this is being vulnerable and really knowing that you're not alone in this venture, this journey, whatever you may want to call it, that there are countless people out there that are going through same or similar situations. As cliche as this sounds, as I'm actually talking about it now,but really, we're not alone, whether you think that you may be in the worst place of your life because you're hitting a bad time in your business, or you may be struggling with some family issues, or, you know, you're stuck in a housing crisis and trying to find out what your next move is, there is always somebody and there's always light at the tunnel to get out. There’s always dark moments, and you know, as entrepreneurs and business owners, we may think we're immune, we get on such an adrenaline rush when things are going great. We're making profits, we're selling services or products, we're doing all the things, and then we get that one thing that veers us right off in a different direction, and we think that our whole world is coming to an end… we start questioning why we did this, should we go insolvent, should we claim bankruptcy, all the things… I go from one extreme to the other in my head, and I know for a fact that I am probably not alone in the entrepreneurial world about that, where it's the complete overwhelm pendulum swing, but knowing that others… Jenn 47:47 …but the more we care of our mental health and our emotional health in that, the less pendulum swing there will be… Shelby 47:53 Yes, they get smaller, farther apart and the business will be more stable. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And that is the beauty about this journey of entrepreneurship, you never know what's going to happen and just gotta learn…  Jenn 48:11 …it's okay to cry your eyes out too every night.  Shelby 48:18 Exactly, cry in the bathtub every night. Who knows? Jenn 48:22 When they're done that, and that's okay.  Shelby 48:25 I for one have been known to go to the mountains and hopefully find a nice quiet hike and just scream at the top of my lungs and hope to God nobody calls stars but… whatever. Jenn 48:37 And that's a healthy choice to do. You have to get your emotions out. I think that's so helpful.  Shelby 48:41 It is, and we all need to release those emotions every once in a while because you bottle those up for too long. Some people are really great at holding on to that bottle for a long time before it pops, others not so much… avoiding that.. being a huge explosion is the goal, and being able to even let off a little bit of steam every once in a while and just decompress that bottle a bit. It does wonders. But thank you so much Jenn, for being here today. This has been such a lovely conversation. I enjoy you thoroughly. As I mentioned before in some other messages, I will probably be coming to utilize your services and definitely have you and the Calgary Counseling Institute at the top of my mind for anybody who's seeking some additional support. But thank you so much for being here with me and for this lovely episode. I appreciate you so much.  Jenn 48:40  Thanks, Shelby. I appreciate it. Shelby 50:00 What an amazing episode we had today and thank you again so much to Jenn Betts of the Calgary Institute of Counseling for joining us today and sharing all this great information regarding mental health and the entrepreneurship journey and how it is so important to take care of yourself first. Now, you can check out more information about Jenn at her website at counseling institute.ca and on her social media links that are listed down below. If you haven't already, everyone, I would greatly appreciate it if you liked, subscribed, and followed “She's Got This: A Journey to Success” on all of the major platforms such as Google podcasts, Apple podcasts, Amazon music, and Spotify. Thank you again so much for being here and we'll see you next time.

Unplugging for Success

In this episode, Shelby discusses the importance of taking time away from your business to relax and recharge. Business owners tend to get so caught up in running and building their businesses that they tend to forget about scheduling time for themselves. Shelby offers practical tips for carving out some time for yourself, along with requirements on how to set up your business so it runs smoothly in your absence.  Taking time away can include scheduling four 15-minute breaks each work day or planning a short weekend getaway. In order to be comfortable taking a break, it’s essential to put a competent team in place, invest in training, and assign tasks and responsibilities, giving your team accountability for the work done. Communicate your absence clearly to your clients and your team, and outline your expectations on how things should be managed while you are away. This way, you can completely unplug, knowing your business is in safe hands.  Shelby recommends practicing mindfulness and self-care; the break should allow you to release work-related stress and set you up for long-term success.  -- Contact Shelby Joines | Joines Administration:  * Website: JoinesAdministration.ca [https://www.joinesadministration.ca/] * LinkedIn: Joines Administration [https://www.linkedin.com/company/joines-administration/] * Instagram: @JoinesAdministration [https://www.instagram.com/joinesadministration/] * Facebook: @JoinesAdministration [https://www.facebook.com/JoinesAdministration] -- Transcript: Shelby  00:07 Welcome back to another episode of She's Got This: A Journey to Success. I'm your host Shelby Joines and today we're diving into a topic that's often overlooked but crucial for every entrepreneur — taking time away from your business. We're going to explore the importance of unplugging how you can build a strong team to support in your absence, and share some valuable tips on managing your business while you're out of the office. So, let's get started. Shelby  00:36 In today's fast-paced business world, it is easy to get caught up in the constant hustle and forget the importance of stepping back. Taking time away from your business isn't just a luxury; it's a necessity for your mental health, creativity, and overall wellbeing. When you unplug you allow yourself to recharge, gain a fresh perspective, and prevent burnout. One way to prioritize unplugging is by scheduling regular breaks, whether it's a short weekend getaway or an extended vacation, or it's maybe taking four or five 15-minute breaks throughout your day, if it's a really… you can't get out of town. It’s crucial to take these times because it can help you return to your work with a renewed energy and focus. Now that we understand the importance of stepping away, let's talk about how to build a team that can manage your business in your absence.  Shelby  01:44 A well-structured team is key to ensuring that things run smoothly while you're taking this time off. Our second tip is making sure that you delegate responsibilities. Now, delegation is an art, and it is crucial for any business owner. Assign tasks and responsibilities to capable team members, empowering them to make decisions and take ownership. This not only eases your workload but also fosters a sense of accountability amongst your team. Our third tip is to invest in training. Now, to build a reliable team, you want to invest in training and development. Equip your team with the skills and the knowledge that they need to handle various situations and challenges. This ensures that your business can continue to run seamlessly, even when you're not around.  Shelby  02:38 Now you built a strong team, and now it's time to discuss strategies for managing your business effectively while you're out of the office. Communication and planning is crucial in this phase. Another tip that we offer is clear communication. Now, communicate your absence to your team, your clients, partners, any other members that are key to your business as a whole, well in advance. Set clear expectations on how things will be managed during your time away and provide a point of contact for emergency. Open lines of communication to prevent misunderstandings and ensure a smooth operation. Now, another tip is to utilize technology by leveraging technology to stay connected without being there tethered to your desk. Cloud-based project management tools, communication apps, and remote access to important documents can help keep you in the loop while giving you the freedom to enjoy your time off. Make the most out of your time away. Now that you've set the stage for a successful time away, let's talk about how to make the most of your break and return feeling recharged and ready to tackle new challenges rather than anxious and worrisome about tasks being completed.  Shelby  04:01 Embrace mindfulness. Use your time away to practice mindfulness and self-care. Engage in activities that bring you joy and help you to disconnect from work-related stress. Whether it's reading a book, going on a hike, or simply spending quality time with your loved ones or family, these moments contribute to your overall well-being. Another tip is to reflect and strategize. Take advantage of your break to reflect on your business goals and strategies. Use this time to brainstorm new ideas, set future objectives, and envision the growth of your business while you are in a serene, calming environment that brings you peace. Sometimes, stepping away can provide the clarity needed to help you see the bigger picture.   Shelby  05:01 And there you have it — unplugging for success. Now remember, taking time away from your business is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of strength and strategic thinking. By building a capable team, communicating effectively, and embracing the benefit of disconnecting, you are setting yourself up for long-term success. Thank you for joining us today on this episode of She's Got This: A Journey to Success. If you found these tips valuable don't forget to subscribe and be sure to tune in next time for more business insights. Until then, take care and remember to unplug and recharge.

Benefits of a Virtual Assistant

In this episode, Shelby discusses the importance of having a strong virtual assistant (VA). Not only can working with a strong VA help support the growth of your business, but a well-trained, competent VA can also ensure your business continues to run smoothly while you’re on vacation. The key to reducing stress and preventing disruptions to your operations requires finding the right virtual assistant with complementary skills to your needs. Shelby shares her top tips for successfully onboarding a strong VA to make your life easier.  Finding the right VA is step one to making your business operate smoothly. The next step is to onboard successfully and delegate effectively. Setting clear task instructions and expectations, scheduling regular check-ins, and using streamlined communication tools make working as a VA easier. If you’ve been dreaming of taking a vacation and not worrying about your business, this short and sweet episode is a must-listen for you! Resources discussed in this episode: * Notion [https://clickup.com] * ClickUp [https://clickup.com] * Slack [https://slack.com] * WhatsApp [https://www.whatsapp.com] -- Contact Shelby Joines | Joines Administration:  * Website: JoinesAdministration.ca [https://www.joinesadministration.ca/] * LinkedIn: Joines Administration [https://www.linkedin.com/company/joines-administration/] * Instagram: @JoinesAdministration [https://www.instagram.com/joinesadministration/] * Facebook: @JoinesAdministration [https://www.facebook.com/JoinesAdministration] -- Transcript: Shelby  00:07 Welcome back to another episode on She’s Got This: A Journey to Success. My name is Shelby Joines and I am your host as always, it is so great to have you here. Now, at the time of recording this episode, we are currently on a little bit of a vacation ourselves out in beautiful British Columbia, Canada, doing some camping. So there is a little bit of potential for you to hear some bird noises, some chipmunks, possibly a little bit of road traffic. But bear with me because this is all going to tie into today's episode. So stay tuned because this is going to be a good one.  Shelby  00:54 Welcome back to she's got this a journey to success, where we dive deep into strategies that will help you along and succeed in your business and entrepreneurial journey. I'm your host Shelby Joines, and today we are going to be discussing a topic that is crucial for every entrepreneur. And that is the importance of having a strong virtual assistant or online business manager so that your business can continue to thrive even while you're taking that well-deserved vacation. To kick things off, let's talk about the role of a virtual assistant. A virtual assistant is like an extension of your team. They handle tasks that range from administrative work and customer support to social media management and project coordination. This, in turn, allows you as the business owner to focus on those more high-priority tasks and strategic planning. delegating tasks to a virtual assistant or an online business manager offers numerous benefits. Firstly, it frees up your time so that you can focus on growing your business rather than being bogged down by those day-to-day operations. And secondly, it enhances your efficiency and productivity as you're able to work on tasks that align more so with your strength.  Shelby  02:15 Now let's address the heart of today's topic. How having a strong virtual assistant or an online business manager ensures that your business can continue to thrive even when you're on vacation. With a competent VA, you can confidently step away from your business, knowing that someone who is capable of the tasks and the work is overseeing your operations. This not only reduces stress but also prevents disruptions to your business's momentum. Now, finding the right virtual assistant is key. You want to look for somebody with a skill set that complements your business needs. Clear communication, trust, and a shared vision are essential for a successful working relationship. It is important to onboard them effectively and provide all necessary information and resources that you have to help them succeed in their role. Let's discuss some tips for effective delegation. Start by creating clear and detailed task instructions. Regular check-ins, whether bi-weekly, weekly, or monthly, and feedback sessions are crucial to maintaining a smooth workflow. Additionally, the use of project management tools to streamline communication and task-tracking. This will be a huge benefit to you whether these tools are things such as Notion or Clickup, or communication tools such as Slack, and WhatsApp. There are countless apps out there. Making sure that you have that streamlined communication and task-tracking programs together is a major point in keeping the workflow going.  Shelby  04:10 Now as we wrap up today's episode, remember that having a strong virtual assistant or an online business manager isn't just about taking vacations. It's about creating a sustainable business model that can flourish even when you're not present. So start exploring your options. Delegate wisely and watch your business reach new heights   Shelby  04:39 Thank you so much for joining us on She's Got This: A Journey to Success. If you found today's episode valuable, be sure to subscribe and leave an amazing review. We'll be back again soon with some more insights to help you succeed in the world of business. Until then, take care and keep thriving.