130: Redefining Prosperity with Kristin Morrison

Summary:

We're super excited to get to share this talk from Kristin Morrison entitled, "Redefining Prosperity in the Midst of a Pandemic" that she recently gave at a conference. Kristin discusses the struggle the pet care industry is going through, plus several great ways to overcome and thrive.

Main take away? What are you chasing? Is it getting you closer or further away from the prosperity you want?

About our guest:

Kristin Morrison started her pet sitting and dog walking company in 1995 and it grew to become one of the largest pet care companies in California. Kristin hired over 250 people in the course of running her business for 18 years and when she sold the business, she had 35 dog walkers and pet sitters and 4 managers on staff.

Kristin is the founder of Six-Figure Pet Sitting Academy™ and Six-Figure Pet Business Academy™ which provides coaching, webinars and business products to pet sitters, dog walkers, dog trainers, and pet groomers across the United States, Canada, the UK and Australia. 

Kristin is also the host of the Prosperous Pet Business podcast which is found on iTunes and the Prosperous Pet Business website.  

Kristin is the author of five books: Six-Figure Pet Sitting, 30 Days to Start and Grow Your Pet Sitting and Dog Walking Business, The Hiring Handbook for Pet Sitters and Dog Walkers, Prosperous Pet Business and Six-Figure Pet Business. Her books are available in paperback on Amazon. The eBooks and audiobooks are on her website at: www.SixFigurePetBusinessAcademy.com

Links:

Kristin’s 30-Day Pet Sitting and Dog Walking Business Challenge

• Attendees will receive guidance on starting and growing a pet business in this interactive online course that has pet sitters and dog walkers from around the world attending. It's a very supportive group and many prior attendees have found it to a profound experience and have attended multiple times!

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SixFigurePetBusinessAcademy/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petbizcoach/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/petbizcoach

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/SixFigurePetSitting

Prosperous Pet Business Podcast: https://prosperouspetbusiness.com/pet-business-podcast/

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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE

Provided by otter.ai

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

pandemic, business, clients, life, pet, business owners, people, money, prosperity, create, service, feel, focus, encourage, thinking, happened, belief, offering, experience, result

SPEAKERS

Collin, Kristin

Collin  00:18

Hi, I'm Colin. And I Megan, and this is petsitter confessional

00:22

and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter.

00:28

Well, hello,

Collin  00:29

and welcome back to a another Friday episode. This one's a little bit different, but we're really excited to get to share it with you. Kristin Morrison recently gave a talk at a conference. And her title was redefining prosperity in the midst of a pandemic, an excellent topic that everybody in the pet care industry needs to hear. And so we're really excited to get to share this with you and extremely thankful to Kristin for allowing us to replay this portion of her own podcast and her talk with you and share that with you today. Let's get started.

01:04

Welcome to the prosperous pet business Podcast, where it's all about pet business challenges, real coaching, and real solutions to help you thrive in your pet business and in your life. And now, here's your host, pet business coach, Kristen Morrison.

Kristin  01:24

Hi, pet business owners, I hope you are doing well, in the midst of this time, who It has been an intense roller coaster of a few weeks in the world, in the United States, with this pandemic, the election, all of it, it's just been intense. And I hope you are doing what you can to take care of yourself to give yourself nurturing nourishing food and loving care and just really providing for yourself the self care that will help you get through the hard times here. And I hope that you're finding some good times to I personally have experienced some silver linings as a result of this pandemic. And this time, but I have been working on a number of projects here that I'm really, really excited about. And I will be sharing more about them in the coming weeks. So what's this podcast episode about today? So this is about redefining prosperity in the midst of a pandemic. So some of you might be going what like, how do I redefine prosperity. prosperity to me is money. That's what it is for a lot of people and in my own life. And in my work with my coaching clients, I've really been looking at this and exploring this and really nurturing my coaching clients to look at other ways that they can experience prosperity during this time. In addition to being a business coach, I'm also a life coach. So I talk a lot about, you know, ways to rewire our brain and this upcoming talk, which you'll hear. So I was scheduled to give a keynote talk to the pet boarding and daycare Expo in Hershey, Pennsylvania, I was really looking forward to it. I had a few of you who were excited to meet me there in person and I was looking forward to meeting you. And of course, because of the pandemic it ended up having to be online. So I gave this talk on November 9, so just a few days ago 2020 I gave it on zoom and the pet boarding and daycare Expo kindly allowed me to share my talk with you. So I am going to be God Willing speaking again, but this time in person, hopefully in 2021 for their West Coast, pet boarding and take care of Expo so if that ends up happening in person, I really would love to see you all there. There's not information about it just yet. But as soon as I you know get the date and the location I'll be letting you know about that on this podcast. One more thing I also want to let you know if you're not already a part of the prosperous pet business Facebook group, I really want to encourage you to check it out. It's a again another supportive experience for those of you that are struggling for those of you that you know need and want connection with other pet business owners who are like minded you know, interested in creating prosperity in all the ways that matter you know time money energy. You will find your people that And I am going to be including a link to that Facebook group in the show notes. And that is a free Facebook group, for those of you that are service bass pet business owners. So the show notes page again, which you'll find all the links to all the items that I'm talking about today, including the audiobook and the dog walking and pet sitting business challenge, that's 30 days, you can go to prosperous pet business.com, forward slash podcast ed to watch. Here we are today together on zoom instead of in person. And the events of this year have really invited us and some would say that they have forced us to do a lot of things differently this year, like attend an expo online instead of in person. And as a pet business owner, you may be feeling confused, scared, frustrated, because of the effects of this pandemic, on your business and your life. And you may even be going through what some would call a dark night of the soul and your business and your life. This pandemic has really forced many of us to, you know, one of the gifts in a way has been to drop our masks. And instead, whatever we're conveying on social media, however, we're acting like we're fine, you know, and instead be transparent, vulnerable human beings. And I see that as one of the most powerful silver linings of this challenging time. Not that I'm glad this pandemic has happened. Not at all. But the pandemic has obviously created, you know, a lot of suffering for a lot of people. But it's also brought most of us from around the world to the same level. Because of our shared experience. We're all going through it in some way or another. And many people are letting their vulnerability out as a result of that shared experience. And I see that is such a beautiful thing. In fact, it makes me emotional to think about it, you know that we're all struggling in some way. And never has there been a time in human history where all of us from across the globe are experiencing the same thing. At the same time. And in my own life. Actually, before I even go there, I want to say I'm a business coach, and a life coach. Usually when I speak at conferences, I'm speaking from the business coach side of me. And this will also weave a lot of that in. But because of what many of you may be struggling with, I'm leaning heavily on my life coaching experience. So I want you to know that this talk is probably going to be unlike anything you've ever heard, if you've heard me speak at conferences before this talk is going to be different than what you've heard. So just be aware of that. But in my own life. And in my business, I've gone through some dark nights of the soul of my own, including weathering a recession A few years ago, and some other challenges. And so I say what I'm about to say from my own personal experience, and not from a Pollyanna point of view. When we can courageously go through the darkness, I believe that can give us inner strength and inner power. And that will serve us well during the darkness. And that courage also creates resilience, which can support us and assist us during challenging times like we're going through right now. So I want to share an example of a dark night of the soul in my business. And at the time it happened. I didn't know if my business would survive. And maybe you're feeling that right now. And if so, I want you to know, I understand, I get where you're coming from. So one of my dark nights of the soul was the time after September 11. Prior to September 11 happening, I had my business for six years, I had more clients wanting to use my pet care service than my business could handle. And that was a great problem. Right? Great problem. My business was reliant on people traveling and that's likely true for a lot of you. And you know, my business was thriving. But then 911 happened and the travel industry essentially stopped. And that meant my business stopped to when it stopped for many months. In fact, I think it even stopped for about a year after 911. And those September 11 is obviously a very different experience than this pandemic. When I think about what my business went through during that time period. It does feel similar to what has happened to a lot of business owners. their businesses have shut down either temporarily or permanently because they've lost a number of clients. And maybe you can relate to that. So after 911, I felt afraid about my financial future. And that was a really scary feeling for me. Because, up until that time, I had been used to having a very successful business. And I really identified myself as a successful business owner. I also, and because of that, I went through an identity crisis, I had no clue who I was anymore, because, like I said, I've been so identified with being a business owner that when my business stopped, a part of me stopped to. And I experienced an internal crisis, not knowing who I was without my business. And that was really hard for me. Literally, overnight, I went from having a full client schedule, to having a blank calendar with no clients on my calendar, and maybe you've had that experience as well. So the reason why I'm saying this is if you're feeling scared, if you're feeling confused, or frustrated, I want you to know that it's completely normal to feel afraid and unsure about what to do next in the face sudden change, like this pandemic. And even though the pandemic has been going on for many months, at this point, you may still be in shock, if you've had the rug pulled out from under your business this year, like a lot of business owners have. But here's the thing remaining in that shocked, fearful place for a long period of time is not going to help you. And it's not going to help your business. And it's not going to help your clients either. And I'm not saying at all that I want you to just get over it or get happy, or don't worry about it. Not at all. I am not saying that, in fact, before you can even consider moving on, you're probably going to need to do the opposite of those things. And my experience is that by avoiding the uncomfortable feelings during a difficult time that can actually make the negative effects of what's happened last a lot longer than they might be if you faced those feelings head on. So avoiding the uncomfortable feelings is sometimes done by eating, drinking, going online for hours, these things may feel good in the moment. But when you're done, guess what your problems are still there. And likely, you may even feel worse than before. So instead, I want to encourage you to go through your feelings instead of around them. And I get that that's uncomfortable, right? takes a lot of courage to consciously feel the fear, grief, or whatever feelings are there for you as a result of this pandemic. feeling uncomfortable feelings can be the hardest inner work in the world, which is why it requires courage, but it will benefit your business too. And my personal experiences that when I have courageously gone through instead of skirting around, the dark times, the pain is eventually brought me to a place strange as it may sound of more joy and resilience than I would have ever thought possible. It has sustained me during this pandemic, all the work that I've done prior has really helped me it's created like a buoy. Right, it doesn't feel good going through the difficult feelings. But on the other side, those difficult feelings, I feel so much better. And sometimes a new life path or a new business path gets revealed as a result of really going through those feelings and coming out the other side. So dark times can often bring about change that likely would not have happened had the challenges not happened. witness that a lot in my coaching clients this year. And I'm going to be sharing more in a bit about how some of my clients have actually used this time of adversity to create opportunity, and even prosperity and how you may be able to do that also. So what I've witnessed in my coaching clients, as well as my own life, you know, I experienced it too, is that many of us humans tend to learn our most important and profound life lessons and make lasting positive changes as a result of going through pain. And maybe you can see this as true in your own life. So I want to invite you right now, to think back to major changes that you've made at various times in your life. Look back, see, did you make them when life was going well for you or were things difficult, and as a result of those difficulties. You made major changes and it's probably the latter, right. And if you can't think of a time When you've made a major change, I want to invite you to think of an older car that you've had in the past that you've really enjoyed having. And most people who love their cars don't want to get a new car until their old car starts breaking down. I know that's been true for me. So years ago, I had a car that I loved, and it kept breaking down, and I kept fixing it. And finally, the pain of those endless repair bills, exceeded my love for the car, and I sold the car. But it took a lot of pain, meaning repair bills, that was painful for me to finally let it go and make that change. So pain often gets our attention in order to help us create a new life, or a new way of looking at life for our business. And because of that pain and challenges can be our friends, as crazy as it may sound, even if they don't feel like a friend when you're experiencing pain. If your business is struggling right now, you may be in financial pain, you may be in emotional pain, and because of that now may actually be the right time to make a change in your business or your life and also to redefine what prosperity actually means to you. So what I'm about to say at first may seem completely unrelated to prosperity, but bear with me for a moment. So anybody here want to lose some pandemic pounds? A lot of people are talking about the quarantine 15. You know, do you have that? Is that an issue for you. So those of you who are trying to lose pandemic pounds or pounds that you've had throughout the years, maybe aware that there's a term used by people who want to lose weight called non scale victories, and some simply use the acronym NSV. So this term describes success that doesn't involve the main focus that most people who are wanting to lose weight are focused on. The main focus when people are trying to lose weight is usually the number on the scale, right? That's the main focus. And that scale number is often the only thing they're paying attention to when it comes to weight loss. However, when you're wanting to lose weight, focusing on other aspects of your weight loss journey can be empowering, and can help you lose more weight than you would have otherwise. So non scale victories can be fitting better into your pants, being able to walk up stairs without having and puffing or whatever that non scale victory might be for you. And when you focus on the positives, besides the number on the scale, when it comes to weight loss, you may actually lose more weight than you would have if you hadn't done that. Because you know, your whole focus is to get that number down. And it's often that number on the scale that may actually cause you to eat more because you feel depressed about that number if it hasn't gone down. So reframing your weight loss journey by consciously noticing that non scale victories that can be empowering, and it can be liberating. And in the same way, there's also something really empowering for your business that can happen when you take your primary focus off the money side of prosperity. And instead, look at other ways prosperity may be showing up in your life right now. And if you're going through a hard time, that can be hard, but you know, just do your best here. So you can call those ways non monetary prosperity, and n m p is the acronym. So here's some examples of non monetary prosperity. Perhaps because of the pandemic, you now have an abundance of time. So time is one of the most valuable resources we will ever have. In fact, many people consider time even more valuable than money because money can be multiplied at various times in your life. But time can never be multiplied. There is only a finite amount of time. Maybe before the pandemic, you had a huge to do list and you constantly felt under pressure to get more done in a day than one person can reasonably do. And now you're feeling more relaxed about time. Or perhaps you were exhausted from being a human doing instead of a human being. That was very true for me in the time leading up to the pandemic. So last year, I had a really amazing experience happened to me, but it caused me to be very, very busy. So last year, I got my 15 minutes of fame and some of you may know about what happened to me an article was written about me and my business. And that article went viral and I went from being mostly unknown by those who aren't pet business owners, just suddenly receiving a lot of interview requests from reporters. TV producers. And suddenly I was flying around the country telling my story about my business success being interviewed on TV, and other media. So most people's definition of success is fame and fortune. Right? Well, here's the reality of it. For me, parts of that fame and fortune experience that I had were definitely great, including gaining a whole new audience, for my books for my podcast, getting new coaching clients, those parts were great. And it was also really wonderful to be able to share my story on TV with those who might not have otherwise heard about me. All these things were wonderful opportunities, and I was so grateful to have them. But some of that fame was also really challenging. For example, I often had to wake up for morning news shows at 3am. So I could get to the TV studio by 6am. And I'm not a morning person at all. And in addition to that, having to deal with different time zones. You know, I'm usually on the west coast, I'm in Hawaii now. But I'm usually on the west coast and, you know, be on TV on the east coast. So that was even earlier for me, you know, so this publicity, Blitz went on for a number of months. But when the pandemic happened, suddenly, my crammed schedules of interviews absolutely stopped, and my calendar was totally blank. Even my normally full coaching calendar was completely empty, because so many coaching clients were struggling in their businesses, and they couldn't afford to pay me and they didn't really need me, they just needed to kind of keep afloat, you know. But here's some non monetary prosperity that I experienced during the pandemic, because of my empty calendar. That time the sheltering in place, time enabled me to get a lot of rest. A lot of rest, I was so tired from all that travel, and from being on all the time. And I was on a lot of live TV shows. So it was a lot of pressure. And I was also able to have after the pandemic happened, I was also able to have a lot of quality time with my husband and our cat, because I haven't seen them a lot in the past few months. So it was really great to have that quality time. Even if you haven't yet had your 15 minutes of fame, maybe your business was really busy before the pandemic. And then when your business slowed down due to COVID, perhaps you were then able to practice a lot of self care. Perhaps you don't have an abundance of money right now. But maybe you have another very precious and hugely valuable resource, which is time. And here's something to think about. So this slowdown of business as a result of the pandemic may never happen again in your or my lifetime. And if it never happens again, that's wonderful. Absolutely. I don't wish this on anyone. But as crazy as that may sound right now, you may look back on this period of having lots of time, if you do have a lot of time, with fondness and perhaps even wish for the days when you have large amounts of time, like you do today. The thing is, this is your life. Yes, we're in the middle of a pandemic. But I want to encourage you not to squander a minute of your life by wasting time wishing things were different. Because that wishing doesn't help you. It doesn't help anybody else. Instead, as much as you were able to and I get that it may seem counterintuitive. If you have an abundance of time, I want you to encourage you to enjoy it. That does not mean not taking action to try to gain more clients for your business not at all. It simply means allowing yourself pockets of time to actually enjoy your open schedule to sink in to appreciate your unscheduled time when and where you can. Again this may never happen again in our lifetime. So in exploring ways that you can redefine prosperity, perhaps one of your non monetary prosperities is having your family at home and you have the opportunity to spend a lot of quality time with them that may be true for you. And I realized to some of you this may seem like a nightmare. When you're used to having at least a certain amount of space and time that's all yours. I know I felt that early on in the pandemic and even feel it sometimes now. So you know I've been with my husband here in Hawaii for a few a couple months and he left to go back to California where hommus for a couple weeks and then he's coming back and I have to say I am really happy to have this time to myself. You No, and it's been great to have him. So, you know, here I am sinking in and appreciating what I have in this moment. So my husband used to work in his office in San Francisco, and he now works from home. And we're basically together 24 seven, which can be really hard. But like I said, what I've become increasingly aware of, with this large amount of time with him, is that that thing never happened again, in quite this way, when business life go back to normal, or the new normal. So when you find yourself getting irritable, that everybody is home, kids are home, you're teaching them you're trying to run your business you're trying to live your life, I want to encourage you to focus on the fact of how lucky you are to have family to be with, there are a lot of people who don't have family living with them. And they may be really lonely. And perhaps you're somebody who's feeling that maybe you live alone. And if you live alone, one of your non monetary prosperities, that you might want to look at is that you live alone. And you only have to deal with yourself in your home, you don't have to deal with other people's moods and personalities in your house that you would likely have to deal with if you were living with others. And as I mentioned earlier, I coach a lot of pet business owners and my coaching schedules, I'm very happy to say starting to pick up again, which I think is a really good sign for business, I'm getting coaching clients calling me saying I'm starting to get more clients than I can handle. And I just, I'm so happy to hear that. It's happening in different parts of the country. And I found this to be really interesting on these coaching calls. So I'll coach someone who's living with their family. And in that coaching session, they will tell me, I wish I wasn't surrounded by people every hour of every day. And then when I coach a person who was single, I hear of their longing for a partner and family and they feel alone, right? It's kind of interesting. It's human nature to want what we don't have. But that doesn't mean we have to give into that longing for what we don't have, right? We don't have to wallow in it. And instead, I want to encourage you to do your best to appreciate your life, or your business situation as it is right now. And if you're not happy with what's happening, brainstorm on how you can and we'll change it now or after the pandemic ends. If you don't like where you are right now you have the power to change it, you are not a barnacle, right, you're a human being, you get to make conscious choices. And I also want to say that I know it can be so easy when times are tough to focus on what's not working, it's kind of where we go as humans. But you know, what we humans focus on often happens, we create our reality, you know, and I'm not saying that from a woowoo place, some people do, but I'm not saying it from what we put our attention on, we create. And here's an example of this. So I was riding my bike down a steep street A few years ago, and I turned my head to look at a ditch that was on the right side of the road. Rather than looking straight, which I really should have been doing because it was going down a very steep road. And in that split second, you know is focused on the ditch. And I can't remember right now, but I think it was probably thinking, I don't want to end up in that ditch and I ended up like, my bike fell down the street and I still have a scar on my shoulder. That's a visual reminder to me that where my thoughts and focuses is where I will likely end up it's powerful to have these reminders. And you can ask yourself is what I'm currently thinking about or focused on where I want to end up. So where we put our attention on in our lives, for our businesses is where our lives and our businesses tend to go. So yes, as I mentioned earlier, it's important to feel the feelings during the challenging times. But don't dwell there for a long period of time. Pull yourself out from the pit of despair. If you're in there, it may take a lot of energy, especially mental energy, to put the focus on where you want your life to be, rather than where it is. But that focused energy on where you want to be will also often help pull you out of the pit of despair. It's interesting because I have a lot of people in my life who know me fairly well and some know me very well like my husband and other people, friends and family and they will save me You're a happy person. You know, you're generally a happy person, you're very positive and, and what I say to them is, you know, I wasn't born this way. I think I was born this way but you know, life experiences you Challenging life experiences created, you know, some pain for me as most people have, you know, business. And life pain can be challenging, right. And I'm not positive all the time. But I do actively work on working with my mind. And I call it mental hygiene. And you know, I floss my mind daily with meditation. You know, with journal writing with being around positive people, I listen to great podcasts. And I feel like it really helps rewire my brain. It's important to be rigorous, and practice Mental Hygiene when you're going through a challenging time, like this pandemic. So I encourage you to harness your power, like, we're all such powerful beings. And we forget that when we're, you know, knocked on our butt, you know, after a crisis like this. So put your focus and attention on what you want to create, and where you want your life to go. When your business to go, rather than where you are right now, or what you don't have, when you think thoughts that cause you to be as uplifted as you possibly can, that will perhaps enable you to see opportunities that may be all around you that you can't see when you're focused on the negative. So when we're focused on the negative, it's as though we have these blinders on. And as a result of those blinders, we don't see what's possible. So there was a really interesting study related to that, you know, the focusing on the positive rather than the negative that was done a few years ago. And the study was this. So somebody purposely placed $100 bill on the sidewalk, they were part of a study, so they didn't just randomly do it, they did it on purpose. And various people found the hundred dollar bill and picked it up, and others didn't even see it. They some walked right on by some actually stepped on it without seeing it walked by those who found the hundred dollar bill, were immediately interviewed by those who are doing this study and questions were asked about their mood, and their mental outlook. And what was discovered was the people who found the hundred dollar bill, were usually in a positive frame of mind. Whereas those who walked right by the hundred dollar bill or even stepped on it, we're also interviewed. And usually those people were in a bad mood, they were usually thinking about problems and issues that they had. And this ruminating that were they were doing caused most of the negative thinkers to not see what was right in front of them, this positive thing, money, not just a little bit of money, it was $100 bill, money on the ground, just waiting to be picked up. So the ones in the positive mind frame no matter what issues they had happening in their life, and it wasn't like their life was perfect. They did a lot of investigating and their questions, you know, like, is your life, you know, generally happy? And some of them were like, no, but I'm thinking about a happy thought right now. Oh, you know, they were almost always able to see that hundred dollar bill. So what we focus on mentally, and emotionally, we tend to create more of in our life, if we're focused on possibility, even in the face of challenges like we're going through right now, that can benefit us in many ways, including financially. So I recommend that you do your best to focus on what's possible, instead of what may be probable given your situation. And what I mean by that is, if probable is that you will, perhaps go out of business, do this pandemic. And that's what you're focused on. That's more likely to be what you create and what will happen. We all know that our mind creates our thoughts. That's nothing new. That's where thoughts originate, right? But what we sometimes forget is that our thoughts often lead to action. And actions lead to the life we're living. So if you focus on what's lacking in your life, your actions will probably lead to more lack or they may lead to inaction. So that's why focusing on non monetary prosperity, like what is going well in your life right now, or being appreciative of the people in your life right now will help you get pointed in the right direction. So here's the thing, though, focusing on the positive rather than the negative is simple, but it's not easy. So how can you change your thinking, if you're going through a really hard time, you can start by becoming aware of the thoughts that you're thinking about your business in your life, just create awareness around them. That's it. That's the first step. And I'll give you an example of how I did that and how I was able to rise above a really big challenge in my life. During a difficult time in my life. So years ago, I was working 12 to 14 hours a day. seven days a week in my pet business, I wasn't making much money in spite of all the work that I was doing. And one day I woke up and I realized that I wasn't living the life I wanted to live. And if working this much was what I needed to do to be a business owner, I didn't want to do it anymore. So I wrote in my journal about this. And as I mentioned earlier, journaling has been one of my positive experiences. And I have a daily journaling practice that I've been doing for many years, and it's called morning pages. So how many of you heard about morning pages? Maybe you have. But if you haven't heard about it, it's journaling for three pages without conscious thinking, and no editing about what you write. But basically free writing your thoughts about whatever you feel like writing about in that moment, as you're writing. And I discovered this morning practice by reading Julia Cameron's book, The artists way. And I found morning pages to be very helpful for me to get clear on what I want and need to do in my life and my business, and I really recommend it. So on that day, I was writing in my journal, as I usually did, and I was trying to figure out how to make changes in my business so I could work less and make more money. I wrote in my journal about wanting to create a new life for myself, when they gave me both time and money. And through my writing that day, I realized I had the belief that making money is hard. In fact, I wrote that in my journal today, I wrote making money is hard. And up until then, I hadn't even realized that I had that belief. But as I began to write, about wanting to create a different kind of life and business, when they gave me both time and money, I became aware of this making money as hard mantra that was really running the show of my business. It was behind the scenes, but it was strong. It's as if the making money is hard mantra or thought was like a weed growing out of the ground. And in my journal writing, I began trying to figure out where did this weed originate, so I could get to the root of it, pull it out. So the thoughts and beliefs that we have are usually symptoms, rather than the reasons why we have them. And if we don't get to the root of why they're there, where they originated, and why, then we may have a hard time making a permanent change in our thinking, as well as our lives and businesses. So again, beliefs are like weeds, in that if you don't figure out where they originated, meaning you don't pull the weed out or the belief by the route, it will likely come back in the form of whatever you don't want to create in your life. If you haven't heard of Carl Jung, he was a Swiss psychotherapist. And one of my favorite quotes of his is, the outer life is often a reflection of the inner life. Meaning the life that we're living is often a reflection of our thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. So when I began to work with this negative belief, I had that making money as hard. I had to look at where this belief originated, because I wanted to make a big change in my life. But before I can do that, I needed to figure out where did this belief come from? I wasn't born thinking making money is hard. beliefs often come from observing our earliest role models. And our earliest role models are usually our parents. And in my case, one of my role models who bottled this making money as her belief was my dad. So growing up, I had witnessed him working hard a lot. And the only time I really saw him arresting was when he would fall asleep out of pure and utter exhaustion. He was also really unhappy with this work. He worked for my grandfather's dad, in a career that he didn't enjoy, and that he didn't really consciously choose, he kind of fell into it. And I realized that my belief making money is hard originated from growing up, and seeing my dad work hard all the time. And that resulted in me thinking making money as hard. And that was also reflected by society. Most of the business owners I know either had time or money, but rarely did they have both. And I wanted both. So after realizing where that belief originated for me, I then began to look at what I wanted to create in my life, because it's not just about looking at where it originates, like when I pull it out, what do I want to create? And what I wanted was the opposite of my negative beliefs. So my negative belief once again, was making money is hard. But what I wanted my belief to be was making money is easy, but that felt like a lie. And it was a lie, making money. It wasn't easy for me not at all, which Why I was struggling. So you know, just saying the affirmation making money is easy. That doesn't work. For me. Anyway, I know a lot of people talk about affirmations. And I do use them a lot. In fact, I'll share a little bit about that in a bit. But for the most part, you know, you have to get to the root of it first. And what I also needed to do is, I realized I needed a role model who embodied that new belief that I wanted, making money is easy. So I looked at my business owner, friends, I looked around for somebody who was making money and an easy way somebody had who had both time and money. And gradually, I began noticing some business owners in my life who embodied what I wanted to create. And through that, noticing, I began opening the door to my own experiences of making money is easy and noticing when it happens. And large amounts of money begin showing up in my life. For example, a petsitting client would call and request a pet sitter they used before and in five minutes, it would basically make $1,000 profit for the month long set that I would book for my staff member. And I, then, you know, after all of this inner work around this, then I began putting post it notes up which read making money is easy. I put them around my house on the dashboard of my car on my bathroom mirror. And with these post it notes to myself and reading them, I was beginning to rewire the neural pathways of my brain by seeing it and saying it a lot. It had gotten into a groove, making money as hard, making money as hard. And you know, if you seen a record player, you kind of lift the needle off, and you put it on a new song, I put it on a new song, which is making money as easy. And so, at that point, I was able to, you know, say and see these affirmations and they begin definitely impacting my life. However, it's not just about like, oh, doing the inner work, you know, it's about taking action. So, for example, I began putting the focus on, how can I market to gain more clients travel, you know, more business travelers and more families to travel for a month or two at a time each year. And eventually, I found that making money was easier, it didn't happen overnight. I had to do some work on my beliefs in order to get there. So I want to go back to exploring redefining prosperity. You may have heard that Bhutan is a country that supports its citizens to focus on what they most need to be happy. And the key focus in Bhutan instead of money is called gross national happiness. And according to Wikipedia, the nine facets of Bhutanese Gross National Happiness are psychological well being, health, time use, education, cultural diversity and resilience, good governance, community vitality, ecological diversity and resilience and living standards. And the only facet that may be directly related to financial prosperity is living standards. But what the Bhutanese officials in charge of gross national happiness have discovered is that often when their citizens experienced all the other facets of happiness, even if the living standard isn't as comfortable as one might like, those citizens are generally generally happy because the other important needs are being met to create their happiness. So today, right now, I want to encourage you to take a look at your own happiness level, and see where your happiness actually comes from. Maybe it's one of those maybe it's something totally different, you know, perhaps includes a lot of what define in Bhutan is happiness markers, or perhaps your happiness markers are different. And if so, that's totally okay. I have a friend who lives in Hawaii. In fact, she lives around the corner from where I am here, and we were driving to the beach a few days ago, she's in my pod. And she turned to me and she said, People make happiness so complicated, Kristin, to me, it's doing the things I love to do. And being with the people that I love. Happiness is so simple. I just love that. I love it. I love it. Because I do think it can be that simple, right? Doesn't have to be this long list like Bhutan has it could be for you. It could be just a couple things where when those things are happening, you feel happy. So going back to non monetary prosperity, there are a number of ways that you may be experiencing non monetary prosperity right now. I want to encourage you to take a moment in this moment to reflect on some non monetary prosperity examples that you may have in your life. One that you may be experiencing right now is an abundance of ideas and creativity, that same brain of yours that helped create your business from a thought to an actual thing. A business can also come up with ideas on how to streamline your business. So you can weather tough economic times, both now and in the future. And you know, your brain can also come up with new services to offer your clients services that perhaps you never would have thought to offer in the past. And these new services may feel a really big need for your clients, and perhaps even create an abundant new revenue stream for you. seen a lot of my coaching clients in the past few months tap into a wellspring of creativity and ideas this year. And it's been heartwarming and inspiring to see that some boarding and daycare companies are now offering Aaron services and pet taxi, which is a service they never would have thought to offer clients before the pandemic. And some of these services are taking off and paying off. And if you've implemented a new income stream as a result of this pandemic, I want to encourage you to share those new income stream ideas in the chat with your fellow Expo attendees right now. And if you also want to write about any non monetary prosperity examples that you're noticing in your life, I welcome you to write that in the chat too. And while you're writing, I want to tell you about a meme I saw a few weeks ago, and I love how simple and true it is. So here's what the mean said there were a bunch of things that except I'm just going to give you three things that it said. So marriage is hard. But divorce is harder. eating well is hard. But being unhealthy is harder. getting out of debt is hard. But being in debt is harder. And what I'd also like to personally add to this meme is being positive, during a difficult time is hard. But being negative during a difficult time is harder. Can you see how that can be true? Again, not like we want to always be perky and positive when we're struggling emotionally that isn't real, you know. But sometimes after a while, it's important to fake it till you make it you know, to pull yourself out of the pit of despair, or reach out and up to somebody who can help you asked for support if you need it, get it get that support, if that's needed. This pandemic will end at some point, it's just a matter of when. And in the meantime, I want to encourage you to keep the focus on what you have rather than what you don't have right now. So non monetary prosperity could mean that you have fewer clients, but you have more time to deepen your relationships with the few clients that you have. If you have a lot of time because business is slow, I encourage you to think about how your service can be more helpful to the clients that you currently have. You're feeling stuck on how to do that. Here's some examples. So let's say you lost half your clients due to the pandemic, you can shift your mindset from how you lost half your clients, which may mean you lost half your revenue, to instead focusing on what you have, for example, an abundance of time, which is a very valuable resource, as I talked about earlier, and how you can use that time wisely. Use some of that time to think about how you can help your clients. Perhaps you can help your clients in ways you never have before like adding services you've never had before, including trimming dogs, nails and bathing dogs if you're a dog boarding facility or offering an errand running service to take dogs to the vet or groomer and if you do decide to offer a new service, instead of focusing on how much money you will make, from the services that you're offering, I encourage you to instead approach offering those new services as a vehicle to strengthening your relationships with your clients and to fulfill needs that they may have by you're being of service to them. Yes, you want to make money from these new services. You are a for profit business, not a nonprofit. But I encourage you to have your primary guiding intention for offering these services to be strengthening the human connection side of your business and being of service to your clients. Why? Why do I want you to do that? This powerful attitude and respect We'll set you up for success. When business picks up again and will help differentiate you from your competitors. It really will. So rather than lamenting the loss of clients, one aspect of deepening the relationships, the clients that you do still have is to find out why you still have those clients. That detective work may help you find clients who need the services that you're offering, and marketing to them. And by doing that, you can make your business more efficient. And you may even be able to make more money with fewer clients, which also means less toll on your personal life. I encourage you to get away from competing with local pet business owners on price that is a race to the bottom. And it's a surefire way to experience burnout, you know, when you're looking at being the cheapest, and some people are going there right now, because they're like, ah, I need new clients. So I'm going to price my services really low. And you know, it's okay to do that once in a while, but you want to be careful. Instead, I encourage you to compete on trust value with your clients. strengthening your client relationships now can help you gain more clients in the future. Your happy clients may refer you to their friends and neighbors or write positive reviews about your business, we can which can also help your business grow during slow times. But don't have just like you don't want to have money, be the focus, don't have reviews or referrals, be your primary intention, have being of service be your primary intention. There's a quote by Gandhi that I just love, he says the best way to find yourself is to be of service to others. And I would add that the best way to find your business again, after a dark night of the soul is to be of service to others. Let service be your guiding light now. And when this pandemic is over, that attention to quality service to client relationships may result in new clients walking to your business. When a business is all about service clients feel that and they love it. And I want to speak a bit more about the fact that you may need to pivot in your businesses and offer new services. So I'll address that a bit more here before I finish. So there are many pet business owners who have reinvented themselves and their businesses in the last few months. And you can be one of them. Some of become affiliates of pet food and pet product companies in order to create passive income from their websites. And as I mentioned earlier, others have become an offering dogwatch services, nail clipping services, Aaron running services, as well as other offerings that they didn't provide before the pandemic they've had to reinvent their businesses. What have you done to reinvent yourself and your business if you haven't already done so. If you're offering a new service, and you're created a new income stream, please write what that is in the chat now to be of service to your fellow pet business owners who are here, share your ideas in the chat. And you may get some ideas from others too in the chat. And in addition to creating new income streams, there have also been many other ways that pet business owners are pivoting that have to do with restructuring their business. So before I end here, I want to share some ideas that may inspire you to make changes in your business also. So earlier this year before the pandemic I had some coaching clients. This was in January, and I'd been urging them to let go of these bad staff members that I kept hearing about her coaching calls. But they were afraid to let them go because business was too busy. They felt like they didn't have time to hire new people. And when the pandemic happened, their fear of letting go of bad staff members totally fell away because a lot of their clients also fell away. They suddenly felt liberated, to let those bad staff members go. And then there were other pet business owners I worked with who began getting clear about policies and procedures and basically organizing everything that they hadn't had time for. Before the pandemic they got up to date with their software systems. They revamped their contracts they cleaned, organize their offices and so many other things. And though it has been challenging for them to lose clients, they now have more time to get their businesses ready so that when clients start contacting them again, they will have the structure, infrastructure in place to grow quickly. If you have an abundance of time right now, this may be an incredible opportunity to learn how to put your well being and your self care ahead of your clients. When things pick up again. Are you really serious Successful if you are working all the time, and if your personal life and your health are suffering, or if you're making a lot of money, but you don't have time to spend it, right? So prosperity means money to many people. But I also believe prosperity has to do with quality of life. This pandemic has forced us all to look at what we've been chasing. And often that's prosperity in the form of money more, more more. And instead, I want to encourage you to focus on other things of value besides money, like client trust, client loyalty, creating quality relationships with your clients and in your life. You know, self care for yourself, having quality time with your friends and family. And I believe that ultimately, those are the pathways to more financial prosperity, and improved work life balance.

56:02

Thank you for listening to the prosperous pet business podcast. It would be great if you would take a moment to write a quick review on iTunes. For any questions, comments, or pet business coaching topics you would like to hear on future podcast, please visit us at www dot prosperous pet business.com or www dot six figure pet business academy.com.

Collin  56:29

So what are you chasing? I love that question that Kristin posed in that thought of thinking about as we as business owners and as individuals, we are all chasing something and to realign that with the reality of the world around us and what we want out of our businesses and out of our personal life. I did want let you know that Kristen has an upcoming 30 day pet sitting and dog walking business challenge that starts January 2 2021. You can check out the links in our show notes to learn more about that and follow along with all of Kristen's work. We hope you guys have a wonderful weekend and we'll be back again soon.