356 How to Overcome Common ENERGY DRAINS in Life & Business (to BOOST your productivity!)
Energy Leaks Are Draining You
Here’s How to Fix Them
It's a SOLO show and after a quick LIFE UPDATE
I share insights on the energy it takes to pursue big dreams and why consistency is key in business, and I go on to talk about three energy leaks that might be zapping your energy, killing your time, or derailing your focus.
We talk about the role of notifications, perceiving everything as urgent, and tracking tasks that drain you. Plus, there's a little chat about sleep as a new mom too (any other toddler mamas?)
Episode Time Stamps:
[01:36] I reflect on starting the podcast back in 2018 and the crazy recording experiences I had
[06:08] Client expectations and the time it takes to build a business
[09:04] Introduction to the concept of energy leak and How to Overcome Common ENERGY DRAINS in Life & Business (to BOOST your productivity!)
[12:22] First energy leak: phone notifications
[17:13] Second energy leak: thinking everything is urgent
[22:49] Third energy leak: tracking tasks that zap energy
[26:18] BONUS! Importance of sleep and personal experiences
To connect with Kelsey:
Access the transcript for this episode:
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Hey, visionaries. Welcome back to the show. I am always so overjoyed to sit down with you, and today it's just going to be a little quickie solo episode. Now, I just wanted to first say thank you for the feedback on last week's episode with Lana. We recorded that in person in Toronto, as I've mentioned, and I feel like the energy was just different. I got different types of feedback that people really appreciated seeing the video, or they really liked how fun and playful we were, or that there was just a good vibe. And to me, that's always a sign that I'm on the right path. And so I am looking for studio spaces, podcast studio spaces to rent and to do more in person recording.
It's so funny because when I started the podcast back in 2018, I. I think I was ahead of the curve, actually. This was a time when, like, Zoom was becoming popular and I just had this gut feeling like, I have to record in person, like, if I'm gonna go to all this effort. So I would travel around Toronto, I'd be biking around the city. I remember I had this tiny little Tascam microphone and I would drive it up to Prince Edward County. I would bike across the city to a spin studio and literally just place it between myself and the person I was interviewing, and I would hit record. And this was not perfect audio. If you listen to any of the first, let's say, hundred episodes of Visionary Life, it was all recorded on a TASCAM microphone, a tiny little microphone that I brought around, like, no bells and whistles.
And I literally just press start and stop. And then I would hook it up to my computer and there'd be an MP3 file. I think sometimes we get so overwhelmed with, like, I have to have the perfect equipment, I have to know how to edit, and I can't say or, ah, you actually don't have to have any of that. I didn't edit my first hundred episodes. I literally, like, beyond preparing, I didn't have any equipment or interview skills or formal training in broadcast communications. But one thing I did have was the bold confidence to ask people to be on my show. That was crazy. I.
I look back at my guests and I'm like, whoa, where did I get the balls to do that? And I also had the willingness to put them on a pedestal and ask for nothing in return. So doing it really in service of my guest and having no ulterior motive. And of course, of course, as it works, if you record 350 interviews, meeting 350 entrepreneurs, and you promote the crap out of 350 people there. Of course, I think I've said that a hundred times. There will be a return on investment, right? It's like the universe does provide and I hate to get all woo, but that's what happens when we don't quit. And what I see so often, you guys. And in fact it just happened the other day. I had a client who had and has very big dreams and we started working together in December and we met for our first onboarding meeting, which is always really exciting.
So we get to dream and then we break it into our three outcome based goals and then we map out all the outputs for the coming six months. Like a half year working together, right? And after three weeks of not seeing results, she was mega deflated. And I kept having to like check in and just make sure that I wasn't like giving her false expectations because that's not my vibe at all. I always say to people, if you want someone to hire to teach you how to get rich quick, first of all, they're probably bullshitting you. Second of all, it's not me. I really believe in how businesses take years to build. I was just listening to an amazing podcast with the band Sophie Tucker. They're an EDM band and it's Sophie and Tucker.
And they are probably one of the most famous electronic dance music bands right now. They've been making music for over 10 years. Like their first EP. They poured hours and hours and months in research and leaned on their skills and rented shitty apartments in New York City. And, and that was all to get their very first record out. And that's not even at all when they got famous. You know, they had to keep producing, keep showing up, keep playing the random DJ gigs from 1am till 3am without getting paid. Even when they were world touring, they were barely breaking even to be on a world tour.
And now you could look at Sophie Tucker and say, wow, they've really made it big. But like that didn't happen for years and years and years of consistently showing up whether there was one person in the audience or 100 or 1000 and playing the same epic show. And so going back to this particular client, it. It's disheartening because I don't know where anyone is getting the idea that a business can be built within three weeks or that by promoting your very first webinar when you have not told a single soul what you're up to, when you're resistant to tell your friends and family or say when you're a little scared to get out into the community. And so you're not inviting anyone when you have zero registrants to throw your arms up and say, you know, this isn't happening quickly enough. And I think for a lot of us, one of our biggest opportunities in business is to extend the time horizon in which you expand, expect success. And I get it. That's not sexy, that's not glamorous.
Like, I'm telling you to be patient, to show up, to do the work when nobody's applauding you, to follow through on the commitments to yourself in order to build confidence. But would it be worth it if in five years you're the only one still left in your industry because everyone else quit? Everyone else gave up just before it was going to get good. And I think a lot of people struggle to hold on that long. And I'm not saying to put yourself at risk to work or to not work another job to fuel this business as it gets itself off the ground, you might have to continue to work for other people. I talk about this all the time, of how I was making most of my money from taking on consulting gigs and building my business in the background and building it at night when I would work all day nine to five for other people. And that was because I didn't have the luxury to just hope and pray that it would work or to leap and hope that the net would appear. So anyways, you guys, that's me on my soapbox because I always just want to be realistic as your business and marketing coach. However, might I also say that when you start to look at your metrics month over month and see what's working, oh my goodness, like, so much is possible.
In fact, I was just chatting with one of my clients and she is only, I think we're three months into working together and I was just reviewing her January and February metrics. She had pinged me today on our project management software called Asana, and she said, my February metrics are done. So I popped in. I'm all excited to review them. And, and I noticed that number one, her energy was up. I always get my clients to report their energy on a scale of 1 to 100. Uh, her website traffic was double, her discovery calls were up, her LinkedIn pression impressions were up 720%. And that's just from January to February, let alone if we were to compare when she started ground zero in November.
If I compared the side by side, November to February, man, oh man, that is a shit ton of Growth in four months. So I always remind clients in that stage, like, okay, we're seeing great results. Like, things are working. But imagine you extend this out to the next 8 months, 12 months, 24 months. Like, the big things are coming. We can literally see it in the data. So I hope this serves as your reminder to, at the very least, track your metrics. All right, you guys, so today I want to get into three energy leaks that might be zapping your energy, killing your time, or derailing your focus.
I am so passionate about this topic right now because I feel like I am in that season where I could be tired, I could be overwhelmed, I could be stretched really thin, and. And maybe I do feel stretched thin, but I. I don't even think that's the right terminology, because I'm. I'm reaching myself in the directions I want to reach. But yet I feel really good about where my energy and my output and my bandwidth are going. Whereas I know that in a similar situation, somebody who has a lot of energy leaks, they might show up for the same type of commitments and feel super drained. And so what I'm getting at here is that if we can patch our energy leaks, like, just imagine your body has, like, 72 different holes in it right now. And the energy that you work so hard to accumulate through nutrition, through sleep, through supplements, through meditation, through being around beautiful friendships, through walking in nature, all of that is filling your energy stores up.
If there are seven to holes in your body where energy is actually just leaking out, that's not good, right? Because you do all the right things. But then there's these places where it just seems to be exiting the body, and then you show up to do the things that you want to be doing, but the energy is simply not there. The motivation isn't there. The focus isn't there. What if we could slowly start to recognize these holes and patch the leaks? If you had nowhere that energy was leaking out, or if you're always staying in tune with, like, okay, well, now I have this new thing on my plate, like, now my kid's going to school, and I really don't like talking to that one person in the parking lot, well, you can patch that leak, right? And if you're always checking in and always keeping the leaks to a minimum, you can create the energy, create the time, create the focus and intention to do all that you want to do in this lifetime. And if you've been following me for the last month or two, you know, I'm obsessed with time. I'm obsessed with making sure that we're not distracted as we go through life. Because I think distraction is.
Is the enemy of growth, right? It just, like, pulls us back and we don't even realize it sometimes. So let's get into it again. We're talking about three energy leaks that might be zapping your energy, killing your time, or derailing your focus. Let's start with energy leak number one. Now, this one is so obvious. I talk about it all the time, but I just cannot believe when I am out and about. I was at the market the other day in my town, and I was sitting next to a couple, and they both had their iPhones on the table, and I'm sipping my coffee, minding my own business, But I couldn't help but notice that their phones just kept lighting up with Instagram notifications and with news and weather notifications. I really believe that every time your phone pings or dings or buzzes, that's an energy leak.
You are taken away from the present moment, which is the only moment that we have, the only moment we are lucky enough to be able to grasp and to enjoy and your focus and attention. So maybe you're hanging out with your kids, maybe you are watching tv, Maybe you are listening to a beautiful performer on the street corner who's singing Portuguese music, and all of a sudden your phone goes and you're distracted. And it takes you away from that moment for a sec because you want to know, what was that buzz? Or maybe you're sitting having a glass of wine with a friend and your phone is face up, and all of a sudden Instagram is going, bing. Someone sent you a dm Bing. Someone liked, someone followed you. None of which is urgent, right? At least not in my opinion. And it completely derails you because all of a sudden your eyes divert and it just feels like the easiest energy leak to patch. Which is why I wanted to share this first.
So, again, this could be social media notifications, phone call notifications, news, text messages, whether anything. There are very few emergencies that you actually need notifications on for. I mean, I. Maybe I'm not cautious enough, but even when Freddy's at daycare, even when I am maybe needing to pay attention because my husband said he was gonna call, I still don't allow anything through because I'll check my phone. Like, there's no. There's no shortage of wanting to check in on the phone once an hour, but I think it's better to have a constraint around it than to have the phone checking in on you. Every five seconds. So I, I think if you are feeling tired, if you are feeling low energy, if you are feeling like you're approaching digital burnout, one of the most straightforward things that you can do to protect your energy and start rebuilding.
Either turn the phone off for a few hours each day, take a digital detox. One day per week or a half day, like maybe mornings, from the time you wake up until noon, nobody gets a hold of you. Even when you have this urge to pick it up and check the weather, say, oh, couldn't I just go outside for this? Or even when you have the urge to text message a friend, write it on a piece of paper and say, yeah, I'll do that. I'll do that this afternoon when my phone is back. And whatever boundary you need to set around this, if you're feeling like your phone is zapping your energy, I can tell you with confidence it is. And you don't need to respond to things urgently. If you get back to a text message in seven days, that's okay. Nobody's going to fault you for that.
If you don't answer your Instagram DMs instantly, that's okay, right? Like, you can operate on your own timeline. You can have carved out blocks in a week to be in response mode or. For me, I love to scroll Instagram. There's nothing I love more than at the end of a day, to sit back. I have like 10 Instagram accounts that I love, consuming their daily stories and content. So guess what I do when I'm in bed at night? I get about 20 minutes from 9 until 9:20, where I literally just sit there. I doom scroll, but that's it. And I will not let myself doom scroll or even scroll social media at all during the day.
I just don't want that to become part of my beautiful present moments that I have during daylight hours, especially while Freddy is awake. So that is tip number one for protecting your energy and patching the leaks. The next energy leak that I see way too many people operating with is thinking that everything is urgent. And this one piggybacks off of the urgency of notifications coming through. But I just want to say this one for anyone who's feeling like emails are urgent, cleaning and vacuuming the carpet for the 40th time is urgent. Going grocery shopping for more food when you already have enough food in the fridge to make a reasonable dinner is urgent. I think we put, especially as women, especially as mamas, we put a lot of urgent demands on ourselves and potentially experience overwhelm we think we need to go out and get the perfect gift. We have to go shop for X, Y and Z.
We have to get dinner on the table with some level of extravagance. And sometimes when you start to really check those beliefs and those thoughts and say, okay, do I have to go grocery shopping today? Or could I make us spaghetti and meatballs or potatoes and steak, or could I take something out from the freezer? Well, yes, I can. And if that means we don't have fresh lettuce for a salad, that's okay. When I'm hanging out with Freddy, I often feel like I need to vacuum. And I love to have clean floors. And so sometimes I'm like, oh, I just like, gotta run downstairs and get the vacuum. It's not urgent, right? What if I just paused, said, that can wait till tomorrow or till tonight, and enjoyed the moment with him instead? Because a clean house. Well, I love a tidy house, but having a deep cleaned house, to me in this season of life, is not urgent.
Emails. This is one of the biggest causes of reaction mode or living a reactionary life. And one of my closest family members is very guilty of just living on the cell phone. Responding to emails, responding to emails. And I always say, like, how can you do any strategic thinking, high level thinking, if all you do is respond to emails? That's not the best way for someone to spend their days, especially if they're in a position of growth. So emails are not that urgent. Like, of course, you can skim for the urgent ones. But thinking that everything is urgent and operating with this franticness, when the only thing that is urgent, in my opinion, is being at peace with what you have right in front of you, that is urgent because if you're living in the past and you are operating under, you know, depression around what was.
If you're living in the future because you're constantly operating in anxiety of what could be, you're missing the present, right? And to me, it's an urgent matter for anybody who is. And I know that there's so much nuance to this conversation, but anyone who's operating only in the past, only in the future, or past and future, but never in the present, that's urgent because this moment is going to pass and you're not guaranteed next moment. So do you want to be responsive to everything that's putting demands on you that are manufactured, or is the urgent part of your life to come back to who you really are, to be centered right here, and to ask yourself what is important in this moment? Only. And if wiping the counter is important in this moment, yes, then do it. And I'm not saying never clean, never vacuum, never check your emails, but does it need to be done at the urgency that you've manufactured and at the frequency that you've manufactured? I always think too that each of us has like this beautiful two to three hour window of opportunity in a day. And so if your morning is usually when you spend time with the kids, the window of opportunity is like you probably have this energy to take them outside on an adventure. Or if you're spending nine to five at work, your window of opportunity is maybe two to three hours of focused work to really get your best work done. And neither of those things can happen.
The enjoyment with the kids at the park or taking them to the science center, or getting your two to three hours of focus work done, if you have this mentality that everything else is urgent, right? And so I think kind of going back to this concept of the window of opportunity, if you look at your life as these shorter time frames and just saying like, what is important for me in the next minute or hour, it usually doesn't come back to the emails in your inbox, the text messages, the wiping down the counter, the preparing the perfect meal. A lot of that just falls to the wayside and we come back to simplicity. What is urgent is that I feel content, I'm at peace, I am paying attention to the people who matter most to me. I am doing my best to create a space constantly where we can thrive in the home. And that might mean decluttering once a week and not bringing in junk, or not ordering off of Amazon or not going to the mall where you're tempted to buy a lot of clutter. So again, energy leak number two is to drop the notion that everything is urgent and to instead work on being present and just preserving that energy that you have in this second. Ask how can I enjoy this energy? And is there anything that I could do to hold on to this energy? Because it's what I have, it's the vehicle that is going to allow me to continue to live my best life and continue to unfold on this journey that we call life with the most amount of peace and joy. The last energy leak, and this one is specifically for entrepreneurs, is to really track which tasks you do in a day that are zapping your energy.
And that's not to say that you'll be able to offload them right away way, but it is to say that you can start to add these to a list for a virtual assistant or for your next business hire. Now, I really started to notice that when I was doing my one on one coaching, there were certain parts of the process, such as getting the contract set up or such as adding the new members into our virtual community or off boarding people or making sure that I sent out their client gifts at the end of our time together. Certain parts of that were just zapping my energy and I really couldn't figure out why. But sometimes you just have to throw your hands up and be like, look, I cannot be good at everything. I cannot be organized with everything, timely with everything. And if I'm able to ask for more help in the areas where I'm struggling, perhaps that could allow me to stay in my zone of genius. So what really helped me bring this to awareness was that I hired a business coach about four or five years ago who introduced me to the concept of doing a time study. Really simple concept.
It's essentially where you sit down, you track your time in 15 minute increments. And I have a template for this. You can just DM me on Instagram the word time study. And you, at the end of four days of doing your time study, you actually color code every 15 minute time block in green. Green is something that you loved. It was flowing, it was easy. Red, I hated that. That did not work.
Yellow is something like, yeah, I did it. I probably wasn't super efficient, but I got it done and all is well. So I did this time study for four days and I color coded everything and I looked at all of the blocks that were in red and it was like really simple stuff. It was like I mentioned earlier, the contracts, the getting people set up and onboarded, the sending out gifts, the reminder emails, the little things that I kept dropping the ball on. There were also some home things on there that I still have not outsourced. If anyone wants to coach me through a block around hiring more help in the home, please let me know. But anyways, I, I really noticed that a lot of these could be off boarded. And so if you're somebody who's running a business, you are in a season where you want to experiment with hiring, team outsourcing, some of the tasks that are leaking your energy.
Do the time study first, put it all together in a little job description and ask could I hire a virtual assistant? Maybe it's two hours a week, four hours a week, so that I can free that time up to focus on higher leverage activities. And for me it was a huge epiphany of What I needed to offload immediately to my existing virtual assistant, which was really, really cool. So there you have it. Three energy leaks that might be zapping your energy, killing your time, derailing your focus. Another one that I've got to share, and this one's a pretty sensitive topic as a new mom, but sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep. If we're not getting sleep, oh my gosh, the energy is low, the vibes are low, the focus is literally non existent. My baby still wakes up one, two, last night, three times a night. I know it's crazy, he's 14 months old, but so be it.
It's all good. So what have I done to start problem solving this? Well, last night didn't go so well because I had a coffee at 3:30pm with my dad and then I was buzzed. Like buzzed into the evening. I will not be making that mistake for a while. I. I usually feel like I'm pretty invincible with caffeine, but I really shouldn't be having it after 12:30 or 1:00 anyways. So most nights I will put myself to bed by about 10pm, try to be asleep by 10:15 at the latest. And that means that even if my little guy wakes up one to two times a night, that I'm okay because I have big days ahead.
I really, really need my energy. And so sometimes that means shutting her down around 8.30pm, 9pm and just putting myself to bed. I just can't risk having late night work sessions anymore. I can't risk the blue light. Obviously there are exceptions. I had to deliver a training the other night until 9pm, but for the most part, I really, really try to protect those evenings so that I can protect my sleep, so that sleep is not the biggest energy drain. Especially in this season of Life where I don't get full night's sleep, unfortunately. So that one's tough and very unique to me right now.
But it is definitely an energy leak that I have to actively patch and be proactive about. Right. And get the sleep that I need in order to be a fully functioning human. All right, you guys, so that is it for this week's episode. Just a quickie and I hope you enjoyed it and please let me know if anything resonated. I look forward to hearing from you. And until next time, I hope you have a visionary day.
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