136: Doing vs Dwelling in Business
This episode is brought to you by our awesome partners: Pet Sitters Associates, Start Scale Sail, & Texas Pet Sitters Association
Summary:
In business there is a time for dwelling and a time for doing. Unfortunately, dwelling can be very comfortable, while doing the work can seem scary. On today’s episode we give ourselves a little pep-talk and discuss some of our own fear of moving from the planning stages in business to implementing them. Natasha O’Banion answers, “How do I keep using the lessons I’ve learned from Covid?”
Topics on this episode:
Dwelling vs doing
Why is it hard to switch?
Importance of trying new things
Ask a Pet Biz Coach with Natasha O’Banion
Main take away? Plan while you’re dwelling and then move into doing the plan and learn from the process.
Links:
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
dwelling, business, pet sitters, plan, clients, people, pet, comfortable, feel, scary, confessional, question, hire, sitters, post, walk, pandemic, learning, step, created
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin, Natasha
Collin 00:18
Hi, I'm Colin.
Meghan 00:19
And I'm Megan and this is petsitter. confessional an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Hello, and welcome to Episode 136. We thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you also to pet sitters associates, Texas pet sitters conference and our amazing patrons for supporting the show. If you would like to be a patron for by supporting us with a cup of coffee each month, the price of a cup of coffee
Collin 00:50
or literal cup of coffee, I'll take that
Meghan 00:52
I do not drink coffee. No. But with the price of a cup of coffee each month you can go to pet sitter confessional.com slash support. If you aren't already registered, we wanted to let you know about the Texas pet sitters conference. It's coming up February 19 through the 21st of 2021. It's an impact conference three days with some really awesome speakers attending is free, but there is also a paid tier that gets you a swag box networking opportunities and to be a founding member of their Texas pet sitters Association. You do not have to be a Texas resident to go to this conference. It is online so it's free. and sign up at t x pet sitters calm.
Collin 01:32
We hope to see you there. So today's topic is dwelling versus doing in your business. Now we listen to Gary Vee. Gary Vaynerchuk. Chuck Yep, yeah. Okay. Well, I guess you've listened to him a lot more than I do.
Meghan 01:48
You've recently started listening to him as well, I've
Collin 01:49
got on the Chuck Wagon. Is that what they call it? Oh, geez. Anyway, anyway, I was recently listening to one of his talks that he was giving. And he threw out this phrase that we wanted to spend some time expanding on because it, it really struck a chord with me. He said this phrase in business we need to be doing instead of dwelling. And the reason we wanted to cover this topic is because 2020 has really been a year where there has been a lot of action and work being done in our business and on ourselves. But there's also been a lot of planning for the future and planning for the next step, or just for tomorrow.
Meghan 02:30
Well, and probably this year. For many of us, it's been more planning than actually working.
Collin 02:35
Right, there's been a lot of strict strategizing and a lot of planning for things to come. And then personally, we've found ourselves in this planning stage and this dwelling part of our business, spending a lot of time thinking about our business, but not necessarily doing much with those plans.
Meghan 02:55
So knowing when to pull the trigger and when to actually implement the things can be the hardest, and sometimes the scariest part as well. This topic is really something we wanted to talk about because we need to hear it, kind of just like the self care episode, we wanted to do that to go back and reference for not only you but for us as well. And this is kind of the same thing. We want to discuss it for us in our business and for your businesses, we need to be reminded to stop dwelling and to start doing
Collin 03:22
a really simple example of this is when you make content. Now you may feel like you you're not a content creator. But if you have an Instagram, if you have a Facebook page that you are active on, you are creating content, you're creating these posts, whether it's to promote a sale, you're highlighting a daily walk with a client that you find really special. Or maybe it's an infographic that you've created, or that you're sharing to help inform clients about a topic that you're passionate about. There's this old saying, done is better than perfect. And it really, really applies to this. And I feel this very deeply to just stop overthinking that, and post the content. Don't dwell on whether other people are going to think of it or whether you've made a mistake or not again, post it and then move on. Because that's when the learning can actually happen from that experience.
Meghan 04:13
Well, and a lot of times people will apply that to social media, which is what you just did. But it could be the same thing if you're making a flyer and you want to post it in your on your community bulletin boards in the rec center or a vet office or the dog park wherever this can be applied not only to the digital space, but the physical world as well.
Collin 04:32
Right. And one step further in this. It's also applying it to just how we run and operate our businesses. We have big decisions to make we have plans that we want to start putting into motion for and on our business, which can at least from from our vantage point and many times feel like there's much higher stakes than creating a flyer or posting something to social media.
Meghan 04:55
In the context of business. Sometimes we have to you know beyond just Content producing, we do the market research, we pull our clients, but at the end of the day, you just have to do it. You can't sit there and dwell and think, oh, maybe and hem and haw, at the end of the day, you have to do it, dwelling doesn't really get you anywhere,
Collin 05:15
well, but say you're a dog walker, and you want to offer adventure walks, that's been a huge thing that many of us have pivoted to, as we've looked across what's happening to our businesses, you do need to do this background research, poll your clients and ask if they would be interested in this service, if you're only doing it because you currently don't have any midday dog walks and you need the money. But if you don't really want to be doing it, that's not a really good reason, you definitely have to pull your clients because you don't want to start something that you aren't passionate about. And just because you need the money for that for that time.
Meghan 05:50
Okay, so how do you know when it's time to pull the trigger? And do it is that when three people tell you as it went, five people tell you one person 20 people, what is it plan? do your due diligence and then do
Collin 06:03
and that question is always the sticking point for this, we can plan all we want, we can do all of this planning all this strategizing, but not understand when we need to pull that trigger, and actually start doing and that's where that scary part comes in. There's a guy that I really like to follow. And I followed him for a long time. His name is Merlin man. And he had this
Meghan 06:25
he sounds like a magician.
Collin 06:27
I know his name actually is Merlin man. It's his real name. And he he he does this. He does this productivity coaching and have the segment where he was talking about what Couldn't you do this week? What Couldn't you ship this week? And why? Why didn't you. And what he's getting out there is that at some point, we run out of excuses for not being able to do something, you either going to do it or not. And so part of this dwelling process is the research is crunching the numbers. And you may find that your plan just isn't going to work. And that's awesome. That's wonderful. That's why the dwelling portion exists is to see whether it's feasible or not. The important part here is is to move out of the dwelling phase into either doing something, or moving on to something else. So the problem with the dwelling phase is that that's where we become really comfortable. And we don't want to get out of it.
Meghan 07:30
Well, this isn't really a motivational kind of talk like a woowoo talk, you know, from a business perspective, you just have to pull that trigger, do your due diligence plan and then execute. But when do you know how to pull the trigger? When you feel comfortable. But some people are never going to feel comfortable doing it. I know you kind of have that sometimes.
Collin 07:52
I really struggle with that. Absolutely. I love sitting down and thinking and planning, daydreaming about all of the what ifs. But when it actually comes time to do it, and walk that path and commit myself to doing it. I retreat immediately. And I want to go and I want to go do something else and just leave all those plans there.
Meghan 08:15
A lot of times, yeah, the action step is very hard. Because when you are branching out and you're doing something new, it's the unknown. It's the fear of the unknown, what if it fails, what if it doesn't work, you do have to be okay, with something failing, at some point in your life, you are going to fail at something I guess unless you're the queen, but the queen is not listening to this. So
Collin 08:34
unless you are and then reach out, let us know feedback at pet sitter confessional calm,
Meghan 08:39
oh my gosh, okay.
Collin 08:41
When you get scared in that instance, and you are afraid to take that next step, that's when the dwelling phase becomes more permanent, because we sit there and we try and make sure that our plan is absolutely perfect and absolutely airtight. I know I say they'll sit there and go, Oh, if I just think about it a little bit more. If I just plan it a little bit more, I'll look for the right opportunity. And then we dwell and dwell and dwell and never move on from that. We did this a little bit earlier this year thinking, you know, if we would have actually pulled the trigger on this and started what we are doing right now, two years ago, how much further along we would have been. And it just would have been a game changer and 2020 would have looked a lot better. You know, we dwelled for two years on changing up our services and our pricing. I even dwelled for three months on our new logo, which Boy, that was. We need to do an episode on that soon. I think I think the waters have cooled enough on that one. But it's really important here to caveat this conversation and not go out and just do to do you have to think and put in the effort. Consider the impacts and the reasons as to why you're doing something.
Meghan 09:59
It's all about finding that balance at the end of the day between dwelling and doing, we cannot rush the dwelling. But the tricky part about the dwelling is that we can get comfortable and we don't want to move on. It feels so good to just plan plan plan. And then the execute is like, well, I don't want to do that because it's foreign. It's unknown, it's scary. Some examples of this are do you hire, you can plan out all the processes, the interview questions, the pay rate, the training, the first month of onboarding, you can do all of that, and you should do all of that. But that's the processing of the problem. You are working through that. But at some point, you have to then do, you have to start that process of hiring and do it. There's no magic number or crystal ball to tell you when to switch from dwelling to doing because everyone's business is unique. Everyone's personality is unique of things they can and can't handle. And that can be the dwelling to doing can be very, very frustrating at times, you know, your business best and the goals that you have for your business and your personal life. So it's a question really only you can answer. If it's adding a new service or a new area or new rates, you should spend time planning that out. But we can get so caught up in the dwelling that we forget to do the doing of the business.
Collin 11:21
Why in business, is it so hard to do the do and that's not a promotion for Mountain Dew, I just realized
Meghan 11:29
I was thinking poop
Collin 11:32
doo doo doo doo doo doo. Who are pet sitters, that sitters or in Mountain Dew drinkers? I guess it is it is very hard. It is hard. At least I know. For me, for me, as I've said it's easier to sit there in flats on vista vistaprint for three hours moving things around on a ridiculous business card and actually clicking the buy button. Because for that that step is permanent. In my mind, in the grand scheme of things, it's only $24. But the weight of that decision feels big to me, even though it's not. So it's about perspective. You know, I can always buy more cards, but I'm not going to get that time back. But it just depends on on what you are wanting for your business and what your goals are.
Meghan 12:17
You can always choose to not offer a particular service. If you start a new service, and you no longer like it or don't want to provide it anymore. There's nothing that is so finite, that you can't change it. But it's really a mental block for a lot of people. Because it's the I feel like I'm really committed to this. And I don't want people to think bad of me for backing out or it could be I can't back out because I already told my clients or I can't back out because I already sent out the flyers, or whatever the reasoning is. You start getting into that sunk cost fallacy of Well, I've already dwelled on this for so long, so I have to now do it. Well, no, you don't. You can back out.
Collin 12:59
Yeah, the truth is, the person that you are saying no to in that case is yourself. You're having to back out quote back out on yourself. And the beauty of being an entrepreneur is that you call the shots, you can make changes as you see fit. But on the other side of that coin, that's also the really scary part is that you are the one calling the shots, you are the one making the changes. dwelling is comfortable because it can all be up in our heads and no one else knows about it. We don't have to get judged or ridiculed or critiqued. dwelling is a lot safer than doing
Meghan 13:34
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Collin 14:17
So the question we keep circling around here is when do you know it's time to do something? When do I make that leap? When do I actually start to do the doing? I've already done the dwelling. But when do I have that personal level actually take that step?
Meghan 14:33
Well, it's a very unsatisfactory answer of it depends. It's very hard to commit to something sometimes because I feel like if I dwelled on it a little bit longer, it would be better or if I dwelled on it a little bit longer. I know some more. But what you are missing out on is the quote in the wild testing and feedback that you are going to get so the scary part of it no longer being in your head. That's so crucial in the process. You are missing out on actually working the processes, you spent so much time working out in your head, and seeing how that fits into your schedule, you are missing out on experiencing the fruits of your planning. That's what the doing does that really scary part of pressing that go button gets you the experience of what you've been thinking about pressing the Post button on Instagram means you are going to be experiencing what you created. And that can be really scary. You know, what if I misspelled flashback?
Collin 15:29
I've never misspelled flashback in my entire
Meghan 15:31
life, not calling anyone out? Or? Or what if I misspell the word walking? Or what if I get negative feedback? You know, a lot of people carry that around of what if somebody doesn't like me? Or what if they don't like this thing that I created that I took time and energy and poured myself into? What if they don't like it? Well, you are preemptively withholding, missing that learning experience from yourself. The experience is what gets you through the growing and the learning. And if all you do is dwell and Surrey really think that through things that are hypothetical, and may not actually come to fruition, your business is not growing, because it's experiencing what you are thinking about
Collin 16:11
you as the captain of the ship, you have all of these thoughts in your head. And at some point, you do need to implement them to further your business to further your self at your personal level. So when do you do these certain things? Well, it depends on the action that you're trying to get done. Are you trying to hire, if you don't have enough revenue to pay the person, it's probably not a good time, you know, they do say not to hire when you're slammed and maxed out. So again, it comes purely down to comfort level.
Meghan 16:40
But that's what I just said earlier of when you are comfortable is that when you do the due, but you had said well, you may never be comfortable. So that doesn't really answer the question.
Collin 16:49
Well, that's because there is no one answer to the question. It's like, do you When do you have a baby? Well, technically, there's no perfect time to have a baby, you can feel like you want to, and maybe you'll have one when you're financially stable. But what does that mean? That metric is different for everyone. And that's the really important part of this, when we talk about transitioning from dwelling to doing from planning to implementing that transition point, that key point and getting you from stage one to stage two, that is different and unique for every single one of us. And it takes time for us to do some introspection and think about what that is and how it aligns with our goals and our purposes that we have.
Meghan 17:30
Well, and that's a good point. I guess that is why you have to have concrete goals and a plan. And you have to know your numbers. I know everybody talks about that all the time, but you have to, but your numbers only can get you so far. And they can only tell you so much
Collin 17:43
right that but that's unfortunately, where the dwelling can come in this the negative side of dwelling of where we start going, Well, if I just made one extra dollar, I would be closer to higher, I'd be more comfortable for hiring. And I know you said it earlier, but this is not a take it you know, go out there and take a leap of faith in your business and blah, blah, blah, this is we're trying to be as practical as we can here. If you have an idea, plan it out, think about it, and then try it. Because failure is not a bad thing. And that's why I personally, I don't like to try new things. Because I don't like failure. I don't like doing things I'm not 100% sure that I'll be good at immediately, which, which it makes me very uncomfortable. And I know, I know, it's absolutely ridiculous, because obviously, I wasn't born being good at anything. And some people have natural gifts and natural abilities which you grow and you learn from the experiences as you try them out. And the only way that I will ever discover these capabilities is by trying new things out,
Meghan 18:50
right. That's why we encourage our kids to try new fruits and vegetables, try new activities and sports and learning methodologies and reading different books. Because you cast your net broad. And in business that can be scary because you need to have a focus on your business. And you don't want to get to a word like you have to have some kind of plan and goals for where you want to be and where you want to go. But as a business owner, if you aren't trying new things, just from a personal perspective, you are not growing and learning more about yourself.
Collin 19:19
And what we're talking about here. This is not a I was a dog walker. And now I make pepper grinders. No, we're just talking about things like changing up your services, pricing, your intake forms, whether to hire or not. These business are boots on the ground kind of decisions. Because when we are doing new things in our business, we are actually learning where we should be spending and investing your time. We are learning what our customers and our clients need. And we are learning new things that aren't just for ourselves. But for the people that work for us and that people that are around us in our business doing is what gets stuff done, obviously, and it's in doing that we feel as though we get committed to things But as we've said, it is so important to not get so committed to something that we can't give it up if it doesn't work.
Meghan 20:06
So again, the planning process is essential to success and the execution of a plan. We have to do the planning to research the background and understand as much as we can about what we're trying to accomplish. But ultimately, there will come a time when you have to move forward and start doing that work. And some things will fail. Yes. And as business owners, we have to be okay with that we have learned a new way to not do something. So Thomas Edison was interviewed one time of he was asked, How did it feel to fail 1000 times and Edison replied, I didn't fail 1000 times the light bulb was an invention with 1000 steps. great success is built on failure, frustration, even catastrophe. So if you took the past eight ish months of COVID, and started something new, and planned something out and wanted to try different services, let us know how that's working. Have you made the jump to trying something new? Or are you still in the planning phase? Do you want to execute something and are kind of nervous about it?
Collin 21:10
Exactly. Let us know how you know when it's time to move from dwelling in to doing and whether it's time to start doing the work and things that you've tried out, we would love to hear from you. And we'd love to hear how you've overcome any fears that you've had. In this process in switching from dwelling versus doing you can send those to feedback at pet sitter confessional.com. You can also call us we'd love to hear from you.
Meghan 21:35
Yeah, we haven't gotten any voicemails in a while so we'd love to hear some 636-364-8260 or you can find us on social media at pet sitter confessional. Natasha is back with another answer to the question of how do I keep implementing the lessons I've learned from COVID. Moving forward?
Collin 21:52
One of the good things that came out of COVID was people adapted, they became loose and flexible as business operators. How do we maintain that moving forward that mindset,
Natasha 22:04
it's one of those scenarios like you never forget, right? COVID is gonna be that time in our lifetime that we never forgot. For instance, me right now I have a passport, I probably have about 20 stamps in there, but I need a seat now. Okay. COVID made me realize that something could get taken away from me that I once had the luxury and the privilege that I no longer have. So whenever we found a cure, I need to stamp 150 I need to stamp more. So in order to just remember like, don't forget where we were, but make your business so bulletproof, that you can survive a pandemic. Now, a lot of people know like this about me, I don't feel that the pandemic was any different than a bad business decision where you you know, loss income or loss, cash, it's all the same stuff. things are gonna happen in your business that's going to make you have to adjust and it's going to have to make you get flexible. So what's your cash flow logon? Like, do you have an eight month emergency savings? Do you have, you know, systems in place for your staff? Do you have protections in place? It wasn't never COVID I think that's what people get misunderstood. It wasn't a pandemic that hurt the business, it was that we weren't prepared for disaster at all is wired to this,
Collin 23:19
which is kind of a hard pill to swallow to realize like, Okay, if I would have had this eight month savings or six months savings in place, what position would I have been in? How would I have reacted? What decisions would I have made? But okay, that that's in the past now. Now, as you said, Don't make that same mistake twice and start acting differently. So you're in a better position. For the next time something crazy happens?
Natasha 23:43
Absolutely. It's gonna happen. I mean, I've been into this for five years. And it's almost like a blessing to me, because I'm like, well, thank God, I got this happen to me at five years, not 20 years, when I was already way too comfortable. You know what I mean? It's like, look at the bright side of everything negative anything that can be seen as a negative, you can also equally see it as a positive. And what I really enjoy seeing in our community is that people really try to see their worth, like, Okay, I'm not doing this anymore. I'm not breaking my back anymore. I'm not saying yes, but I should have said no, they just started to get real, real clear on expectations of like, okay, at any point, I need to be thinking about my life also, you know, I have a business but I'm also a person. So am I taking care of myself as a person to make sure I am in my most healthy state to withstand anything that could come my way. And I really saw that happening a lot, which I really enjoyed because, again, burnout and you know, saying yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, all the time and doing things that we really shouldn't be doing. It really made us slow down and take a deep look into what really what we needed to see before this happened.
Meghan 25:05
Natasha not only owns her own pet business, but she coaches other pet business owners as well. And if you would like her to be your personal pet business coach, you can go to start scale sale.com and use the code p sc 20. For 15% off any of her coaching,
Collin 25:19
we would like to thank pet sitters associates, Texas pet sitters and our wonderful patrons for making this week's show possible and allowing us to have these kinds of discussions do the kind of interviews that we're able to do and produce the content that we are so enjoying producing every single week.
Meghan 25:39
And thank you for taking the time. We are so grateful. We'll talk to you next time. Thanks
