Fun Business Fun Money Podcast
EP 042 – EVERYONE is a mess
I’m a mess, you’re a mess, everyone is a mess!
There, I said it. Let’s stop playing the comparison game and finding ourselves in last place every time.
This quick tip episode is the pep talk you might need right now, especially if you’re stuck in the weeds of your business and feeling like everyone else is doing better than you are. They’re all a mess in some way behind the scenes!
TRANSCRIPT
Hey there, and welcome to the Fun Business Fun Money podcast!
If you’ve picked THIS episode for your first ever listen, either because the title resonates or because someone recommended it to you, you’re in exactly the right place!
Thats how I choose which episodes of the various podcasts I’ll listen to – the title hits home for me in some way and has my inner wisdom seeker shouting “YES! I need to know about this!”
And of course if you’ve been here for a while and you’re the one recommending it to others, THANK YOU! I can’t actually express how much that means to me, other than I’m grateful. I appreciate everything about you!
Now on the title of today’s episode, this one is messy. Specifically, EVERYONE is a mess.
I know, big bold claim, especially for those of you who might be spluttering with indignation, theres no way YOU’RE a mess!
And that may be true right now, but lets be honest, everyone has messy moments where we fall apart, we feel like nothing is working and whats the point of it all!
Its pretty much the entrepreneur life, isn’t it? All those wonderful highs and dark lows that we signed on for!
The thing is, everyone IS a mess, they just don’t always show that stuff. No one has their shit together, and anyone who says they do, REALLY doesn’t have their shit together!
What I mean by mess is the chaos going on behind the scenes.
Perhaps your personal life seems picture perfect. I say that tongue in cheek because theres no such thing, but you may have people constantly telling you how good you have it.
If you happened to watch Oprah’s interview with Michelle Obama on Netflix about her latest book, The Light We Carry, Michelle poured a bucket of cold water on the whole #relationship goals thing. A perfect moment captured by the photographer doesn’t convey the fact that she was MAD at her husband in that photo!
If you’re a woman of a certain age, you might have hit peri-menopause and nothing makes sense anymore. Your marriage might be breaking down, your kids might have hit the delightful teen years and they’re giving you more stress than you ever thought possible, even though you were a teen back in the day too!
A mess in your business can look like…
Issues with your team, or you’re overworked and NEED a team to help. Actually LEADING a team can be all kinds of messy as you navigate different personalities and ways of working.
Maybe your pipeline of leads has dried up and you’ve got no clients, or the clients you do have are all kinds of wrong for you.
Its tech issues, email management, financial systems, conquering fears, saying yes to opportunities that scare you, saying NO to things that are out of alignment.
Maybe there are overdue invoices, or tax time is looming and you haven’t allocated enough for it, a business mess can be ALLLLL the things!
Can you relate to some or all of those I’ve just mentioned?
What about thoughts like…
“I feel like an imposter, someone is going to figure out I’m a fraud and see I’m not what they think I am.”
“I feel like I’m not productive enough, I have no idea how to prioritise tasks.”
“My desk is a mess, I’m so disorganised. My receipts are all over the place and I’m embarrassed to talk to my bookkeeper or accountant.”
“I don’t fit in with the people around me.”
“I’m scared of success and I’m scared of failure. I’m a mess!”
One of my favourite parts of being a business and money coach is the mess I help you work through.
Clients come to me wanting help with their offers, their pricing, their systems and processes, or a clear simple strategy to scale their business.
What they ALSO get is a huge sense of relief that they’re not alone and they’re not actually a mess. There’s just some messy stuff going on that may not be as hard to deal with as you think.
Its easy to compare your life and business to others that you see on social media, in their emails, even in real life if you happen to like peopling ‘in person’, and find yourself lacking.
Speaking of ‘in person’ peopling, I’m doing exactly that this coming weekend! I’m off to a 2 day conference in Noosa on the Sunshine Coast of Australia. And I have to confess I’m nervous about it for 2 main reasons…
1 – I’ve not been around this many people at once in almost FOUR YEARS! I was 100% online working from home well before the pandemic came along and I’m way out of practice!
2 – I’m a mess and I feel completely out of my comfort zone being surrounded by loads of women who appear to NOT be a mess.
But you know what? I KNOW all of those other women are messy in some way too. Some are millionaires, most aren’t. But even with a million or more flowing through their businesses, they’re a mess.
We need to take people off this imaginary pedestal we’ve put them on, they’re human beings just like you and I. Everyone is naked under their clothes, whether they’re designer brands or the cheapest activewear.
Playing the comparison game only has one winner, and its never going to be you.
You’re always going to put others ahead of you with all the ‘reasons’ why they’re so much better at this thing than you are.
I guarantee there is someone else out there watching YOU and thinking your business is be way better than you perceive it to be.
Being a mess can be physical – you’re disorganised and have clutter everywhere, you’re constantly in ‘tidying up’ mode.
It can be mental – hello brain fog from menopause, ADHD or any number of other common factors.
Its emotional, spiritual, basically mess shows up EVERYWHERE and gets in your way!
And mess is ok. If you’re trying to maintain an illusion of a perfect life, where you’ve got your shit together and you’re basically Wonder Woman handling everything at once, its ok to drop the balls, just let it go.
You know who’s very open about being a mess? Brene Brown. Shes an award winning bestselling author, shes got a successful career – and shes a MESS! She knows her strengths and weaknesses, and she has people around her to support the areas shes not so good with.
So, can we agree to stop the comparison game, right here right now, and accept that everyone is a mess, no one has it all figured out, and we’re all just doing the best we can with what we’ve got or what what know right now?
Because that would be awesome. We don’t need picture perfect Instagram feeds, beautifully filtered brand photos or AI generated words in our posts.
We just need you, in your perfectly unique and messy way of showing up and getting things done.
We never know whats truly going on in someone else’s life, business or money situation.
I could honestly go on and on AND ON championing the underdog vibe simply because I see everyone as equals, I want everyone to win.
So I’m going to leave you with something I heard recently that I absolutely love, which is stop comparing your messy inside with someone else’s beautiful outside.
Because lets face it, theres a mess inside there somewhere!
Of course I want to give you an action step because I love taking action in some way. Take a look at what you’ve created so far in your business and give yourself a pat on the back. You got to where you are today, YOU did that. And its exactly where you’re meant to be right now.
And then unfollow, unsubscribe, remove yourself from situations where you’re triggered by someone else to feel like you’re less than they are. They probably have NO IDEA you feel that way!
Thats what I’ve got for you today. Take care, have fun embracing your mess, and I’ll catch you in the next episode!
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