15: The one about self-care practices

Today's episode is part 3 of our series about women's mental health for LipTember.

And today we're talking about the importance of self-care (it's not just bubble baths). We share our own self-care strategies, including having boundaries, taking regular breaks, and delegating tasks. Of course, work/life balance gets a mention, especially how tricky it is to get any balance when we have our own businesses. We give shout outs to physical exercise, saying no, and the value of a good hairdressing appointment.

Number of fucks given in this episode: 10

You can also listen on your favourite podcast apps, including Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Episode transcript

Christine: Welcome to the fuck around and find out podcast, where your hosts, Rah, Emily, and Christine were three women who have built and run our own businesses and are here to shoot the shit on everything about women in business and running your own business. So for those listening, you have been warned. Been listening for a little while by now.

So we thought we might not go into the depths of who we are and what we do and all about our businesses, but perhaps maybe share a fun fact or two along the way with you, something a little bit different as we move midway into the season, number one, um, so rah, I've got to put you on the spot last in the alphabet.

Tell us something about you. I mean,

Rah: there's so many weird things that I could share. So

Christine: go with something weird.

Rah: Okay. Something fun. So

Christine: I'm a plane

Rah: nerd. Ooh.

Emily: A plane is the funniest thing. I love it. Ooh, I love

Christine: that. So what, so plane nerd, what does that mean

Rah: for you? So um, it is varying things. It is knowing what planes are flying over our base.

Yes. Plus we live under the flight path. Ooh. City. City. Well, in a West Sydney life, um, so certain planes I can just know by sound

Christine: by sound. Yeah. Cause the engines are different. Are we talking about that's an A380 going over here?

Rah: That's the one I can nail every time, which in fairness, like the secret is it's lower and it's like louder.

So I can kind of spot it. And I know the timetable of the most of the A380s. Um, but also I go to the airport and sit along the runway and watch the planes take off and land and take photos.

Christine: I've driven by all those people down parked and I'm sure I've seen a Mr. Whippy down there in the past. So it's very smart business for Mr.

Rah: Whippy to turn up there. Absolutely. Um. Um, yeah, so there's multiple spots where you can go, but there's one that's right along the, um, uh, international runway. Yes. Like the big first runway. Yep. Um, and yeah, you can just stand against the fence and look through the grill and watch the planes to the point where you can see the pilots and wave at the pilots if you really wanted to.

That is, and it is so cool. Such a rush. Um, and certain places where you can be under the flight path so that when the planes are coming in to land. Yep. be on the water, that kind of thing. Um, and yeah, so I've been heavily into that for probably 10 years now.

Emily: Yes.

Rah: Um, and I even won a competition. Um, there was a lottery to get an airside tour and that was about, uh, 11 years ago now.

And so I got to be on a mini bus with other plane nerds. I was one of only two women and we got to sit in between the runways as the planes were taking off and landing.

Emily: Oh my gosh. Yeah,

Rah: like.

Emily: Is that not scary?

Rah: No. I feel like

Emily: that would scare me.

Rah: I mean. Like, oh god, I'm gonna die. There is a hint of, oh fuck, what if something goes terribly wrong like it does in, you know, other countries that aren't, aren't as well, um, maintained, yeah, as Australian, um, aviation laws.

Um, but yeah, so my, My favourite thing is when friends who catch planes, like Christine you did recently, and um, telling me all about the pilots getting onto the plane or photos out the window, um, or I then just track you and go, you're flying over my house! I know! I know! Because I can lie in bed and I can watch the planes come in in the morning.

Is

Emily: that why you chose where you live?

Rah: No.

Emily: Just a happy guess? Yeah. Yeah.

Rah: I was thrilled when we did rotate the bed that it was facing the window. And so, yeah, there have been times when there's been like special planes coming in, um, or like special planes retiring and they've done the big. Oh, big parade.

Big parade of the plane leaving. And I can just see it. I just get a big lens on my big digital camera and take photos from home and that is so

Christine: cool.

Rah: Yeah. So if anyone is interested, my favorite, um, Airbus plane is a three 80 and my favorite Boeing plane is the seven eight seven dreamliner, which I have caught from, I've been on the dreamliner.

It used to be, if it ain't Boeing, I ain't going, but given the latest track record of Boeing, that, that phrase ain't working no more. So yes, that's. That's, that's the weird thing about me. Well, that's an awesome weird. We've all got to have weird stuff around us. So if you have any questions about planes or flights, airlines with better records or where to find the seating plans to know where you'll be sitting on the plane, let me know.

What's yours, Chris? Are

Christine: you ready? Or do you want me to flick to M? No, no. Well, I was trying to decide which weird thing will I, or interesting about me, I would share, but Hey, we'll just keep talking about this in upcoming episodes, I think, so I can share them all. Um, well. I, um, I, I like to, well, my weird thing is that, um, I like watching movies and docos and movies, um, about real stories.

My, I mean, I've got some awesome favorite films that, um, are, you know, not, you know, they're fiction. But I like to watch stuff that is real because strange, you know, um, nonfiction is, um, strange, you know, truth is stranger than fiction and all that sort of stuff. Um, I'm madly Google while I'm watching these things.

Oh, I married

Emily: one of those. I do it too. I like learning about people in the movies.

Christine: And when I get to the end of a movie and I didn't know what was based on fact, I get very excited. You know, when they run the movies, um, at the pictures at the end. Oh yeah, of the real

Rah: person with the actor.

Christine: You know, exactly.

So, I just recently, um, watched the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Oh, that's on my list

Emily: because I love Henry Cavill.

Christine: Well, I mean, oh my God. So it's Henry Cavill and the guy that plays

Emily: Jack Reacher, Alan Richardson. I love him too.

Christine: Uh, epitopher, just marvelous, marvelous cast, but it's a true story. Oh, is it true?

It's true. And it, and that was great cause I didn't know till the end that it was real. So there wasn't any Googling happening whilst I was on, but of course, mad Googling after, so that's just one of the funny things and weird things about me is that, um, yes, I Google as I watch. Um, movies and I find people's heights fascinating because I feel

Emily: like they really make people look tall all the time and they're and I'm like no, I think you're my height.

Unless

Rah: you're Tom Cruise or Bruno Mars, they're tall. Yes.

Emily: Exactly. Yeah. And then I also find it fascinating with women whether or not like I every now and then try and clock the footwear that they have them in. Yeah. Because people like like Gwyneth Paltrow. For a lot of the scenes with Robert Downey Jr.

in, um, Iron Man, she had to be four feet and he had to be on a box. He stood on the thing to make him seem like he was taller than her because she's like five foot nine and he's like five seven. Yeah. So she's taller.

Christine: I know. But they had to create

Emily: the illusion that he was taller than her. That's right

Christine: because, you know, you can't be a man and masculine.

Masculine, unless you're tall,

Emily: it just makes me giggle.

Christine: Exactly. So m um, I hit us with a weird, interesting, fun fact. Sorry. I was the one that took it to weird. It was just makes something interesting. Yeah. No, it doesn't have to be

Emily: weird. I have many, many things as well, but I'm heavily tattooed. It's probably my one, no idea.

Can't tell. I've got my whole arm tattooed and I don't think people notice it as much, especially in winter because I'm wearing jumpers a lot. Yeah. Um,

Rah: also you don't have them like above the neckline.

Emily: No, no, no, it's just like I've got my shoulder blades, both my shoulder, my shoulder blades at my back.

Rah: Yep.

Emily: Um, done. And then one, one arm, my left arm is basically done from the top of my shoulder all the way down to my wrist.

Rah: I can verify. I'm looking at it right now. Yeah,

Emily: I need some extra stuff patched in to just fill it up and it's much to my mother's um, horror. But I am a bit of a tattoo person, I love my tattoos.

I'm getting to the point where there's not much left I can do because I don't want to end up fully covered. Do you want to pose alone and go for the

Rah: head?

Emily: No, no.

Rah: No? Okay.

Emily: And I'm also not going to bother touching my thighs, even though it's a beautiful landscape on those trunky ass tree trunks of my thighs.

But it's not like they're ever going to see the light of day. So, there's no point.

Christine: Oh, so yours is all about the display of. I want to say, yeah, because it's like You want to see and you want to be. people to see. Yeah. Yeah.

Emily: I mean, maybe I'll consider my thighs because I will definitely get to the point where I'm like, I

Christine: want another one.

Yeah.

Emily: And then I might go. You're going to run out of canvas. Pretty much, yeah. Yeah. But I've already got him primed to like finish my arm and, um, and tuck, like patch over something on my ankle.

Rah: Yeah, right. So I've

Emily: got, yeah. Shout out to Voidy Lloyd at, um, Cumbulla Studios, Lloydism. Um, I had twenty twenty four, but then I had my rest of my forearm done, so I don't know if that counts as like a million.

So, a few, like, I s My forearm is literally top to bottom, and then I've got I've got like two on my back, on my shoulder blades, one down my foot, one up my ankle, one on the inner side of my ankle, my right thigh, and then Um, on my, I've got a big rose on the top of my other foot. Um, my, yeah, my ankles are covered, my feet are covered, my inner arm on my right hand inside is also covered.

I got a lot.

Rah: I love

Emily: my tattoos. I've also got behind both of my ears and on my neck.

Rah: We have to stop recording because I just got an email from Western Sydney airport saying you can win a competition to go on the runway.

Emily: I

Rah: will. Let's put a pause. They've sent their newsletter out, which Western Sydney airport is doing a great job with their social media and email marketing, and you can, you know, You can enter a competition to go and walk on the runway.

Also, how

Emily: hilarious that it just came up as you're talking about your hair.

Rah: Also tells you what my attention span's like, that I'm checking my emails as we No,

Christine: that's,

Rah: that's Going through my promotions tab. That is alright, darling. It's called multi tasking.

Christine: Do you wanna quickly Yeah, no. Do you need to do those 25 words or less?

No, I just thought it would make for good content. Doing it for the pod! Oh, for the pod!

Emily: Yay! Cool! Yeah, that's me, Miranda. In fact, I'm tattooed.

Christine: Nice.

Emily: What are we here to talk about today? Aside from all our ramblings we've already just bored everyone with.

Christine: Um, it's not boring, it's scintillating. No, absolutely.

We're just scintillating the audience. Um, we're going to talk about, um, self care.

Emily: Which, you know, to me tattoos is self care. That's great. Yeah,

Christine: but, you know, we're,

Emily: we're,

Christine: we're talking more than self care is about. bubble bath here. I don't do baths. I don't own a bath. So, you know, we had to

Rah: buy a place that had a bath.

Did you? That was a roll from my other half. Okay. Oh yeah. Oh, he's a massive bath guy. Loves a bath. If there's alcohol as well. I'd rather just have the alcohol.

Emily: I mean, I did go through a phase of like falling in love with Lush bath bombs because I thought they were quite fun and like having a bath with that.

So you

Rah: get around that by buying the body spray. That's what I've done. Yeah,

Emily: I should do that. Because I also find I'm not good with dead time and I find sitting in a bath, sometimes I'm sitting there like, I can't actually relax.

Christine: Well, my, um, my son has a workaround for not having a bath and not having, being able to watch the laptop.

So the, the laptop sits on the side of the vanity and you just got to keep wiping the glass. And, um, and yeah, so he's in a, he does get banned, so he's banned from having the laptop in the bathroom, but obviously I'm not there all the time, uh, kind of thing. But look, we, we did say. Also, shout out to your water bill.

Yeah. Oh yeah, please, please. No, no judgment here. When you're in the droughts, that's okay. Um, but anyway, so we did say that self care is more than bubble baths, but hey, if a bubble bath is, Your version of self care, then hats off to you. Um, I just can't immerse myself in hot water. Um, but yeah, so we were going to have a bit of a chat about the other.

Um, things that you can do, um, you know, practical everyday things or some changes to help with self care, but I suppose the premise about it's not just a bubble bath. Um, because there is so many facets of your life. Um, professionally and personally that you need to really take care of yourself. Yep. Um, Ian, and that's kind of like where we really wanted to go with this conversation today.

Because

Rah: we've been planning this episode for a while and I didn't know what I would be able to contribute in terms of ways of performing self care.

Emily: Yes. As we were talking about before, like, we talked about the mental health piece the other day, and it ties into that, and, but I think people, we all do things for ourselves, but we might not actually realise that that is a form of self care.

You know, for me, it's little things like just choosing to, You know, not sit at my computer screen, or, you know, paint, or read my book, or, you know, I love getting my nails and my lashes done because I'm a total girl by the way. You know, that, that is things that I've had many a time my mother be like, don't waste the money.

This is so much money. Don't waste your money. Like, but it's actually, It's like tied to myself, well exactly, and it's tied to my self worth, and like I feel better when I have them done, and I feel crappier when I don't have them done. Oh,

Rah: absolutely. Okay, so one of my self care is when I wear my bright pink undies, because no one knows.

But it makes you feel good. I know. Yep. And that's all that matters. And shout out to Harriet, my friend, my Scottish friend who I've mentioned before, sounds like Macbeth. Love a good Scot. Yes. Um. She, um, always wears matching underwear, and I don't. Yep. I never do. Yeah, no. No, my

Emily: undies

Rah: are always black. So I do not have a hot pink brow, but I do have the hot pink undies, mint green.

Yep. So when I wear the different colors, I'm like, Yes! That's my little Oh, that is so cool. So no one knows. No, but it makes you feel better. Well, until I bend over and flash them to everybody, but, you know. Oh, well, that's It's after a few cocktails, I mean. Exactly. Then it doesn't count. But

Emily: it's, it's You know, it's little things.

And like, Chris and I were talking this week to our, our new PT. Yes. Who, you know, because we both decided that it's important for us to, you know, prioritize actual physical exercise. Yeah. Because that, I need, we both need to strengthen up and just, because we spend our entire day, as do you, sitting in front of a computer screen.

Yeah. Because our work is on the computer. Yeah. And it's not, it's not good. They say for every like 20 minutes you're actually supposed to stand up for five. Yeah. Or something that you're sitting because it's, and I, my whole back of my leg, my muscles from my back all the way down to back of my legs, they lock up because I'm sitting all the time.

Yep. It's so tight and so inflexible. Yep. And then that causes back pain and foot pain and knee pain and it's like never fucking ending. And it's so, like that, that's something that I have to do and I'm going to force myself to do because I know it would be better.

Rah: I would love to get a standing desk at home, but I've got one three days a week at the office I rent out.

So I just need to get better at using that. Yeah. Well, I'm thinking like, didn't I do that on a, on a huddle with you the other day? And I suddenly just, I started to look like I was still joking. And it was just me not standing up before I

Emily: We thought you were being just silly on the

Christine: screen. They're absolutely valuable.

I have a sit to stand desk at home. Um, best investment. It's not, it's too big to bring to our office premises. Um, and, but Emma and I will probably talk about, you can get workarounds for sit to stands that sit on top of, yeah. And so I think we'll probably look at that, um, from a health perspective, um, put it into the wellbeing budget.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Um, but yeah, so it's really, yeah, the, the standing up thing, the movement thing is incredibly important. Um, and, and I think. Also, like it's linked to that boundary piece. So, so boundaries of course, is a form of self care and whether that's you saying no to an employer, um, no to a client, no to a child, no to a partner, no to the dog.

Um, you know, always saying no to the kids, right? I know. Yeah. I'm doing that to the cat all the time. Yeah. Um, but you know, it's seriously important. Um, and, and only you can up that. Hold your boundaries and teach other people that you have very defined boundaries.

Emily: And that's important when you're in a business like all three of us, where we have clients and clients, sometimes we get that they are not the only client and we have to ensure that we are reinforcing boundaries to not overload ourselves.

To appease someone who is a little bit needing a bit more handholding.

Christine: Well, that's right and ignoring the emails when, Oh, you Christine, hold that off till tomorrow. This is a Friday email. Hold that off till tomorrow. I've got to do something first. Well, that tomorrow is my day. I don't get on my computer.

on a Saturday. I have got enough home work to do on a Saturday. Um, the, that my boundary has been, and it has actually been ever since I started in business. It wasn't a deliberate move at the beginning. Um, but it is something I have stuck to, um, and I do not get on a computer. Now I've got a phone. If there's some urgent messaging from a colleague, team member, I'm available, but I don't, I don't respond to client stuff on a Saturday.

I don't get on. I won't even, if you email me about a personal thing, I'm not on email on, I'm not on a computer on purpose, because again, I need a day that I'm not sitting at a computer. I need a day where I'm not. focusing on small print, which is killing my eyes over and over again, but it is about a very strict boundary piece that I've got.

Um, and I'm trying my best to make sure that, um, what I do on a Sunday is just really, you know, urgent stuff. And that is more around, You know, sun and air is going into year 12 next term and I've got to buy the book. So that was a Sunday activity I needed to get online. But yeah, so it's about learning to say no.

And it's, it's odd when you're a people pleaser kind of person, um, to say no. To people, but it's actually incredibly empowering when you start saying no, um, and you know, when you're in an employment situation and you've got expectations from your managers to do things. Well, you know, we all know that managers are in those roles and generally are paid more than you to be in those roles.

And if they want to do stuff after five o'clock, then they can do stuff after. Five o'clock. Yeah. Um, but not set that expectation that you will be doing, um, similar, similar work outside of hours. I remember learning a long time ago when, uh, um, when I had a job and being asked to do some priority work and working out that, you know, what, if somebody puts something priority in front of me, I will then turn around and say, which other of my work Am I getting rid of and tabling to get this priority work?

Um, and that's, that becomes an interesting piece because they then realize, Oh, okay, yeah, how important in our priority is it more important than the work you're doing? And I think you've got to really, like, we don't need to just, You know, clients don't have to say jump and we ask them how high, um, that's not the kind of client relationship I want to have.

Um, anyway, but yeah, boundaries. Totally. Totally. As difficult as

Rah: it is as a self confessed people pleaser. It's really hard to have those boundaries and, you know, push back even a little bit. Yeah. But depending on who you're working with, sometimes that's actually, you know, Something that they actually will respect because they're like, Oh,

Emily: okay, cool.

Makes you feel and also seem a bit more professional because you are showing that you have the ability to not just say yes to everything. Because I think, I don't know if someone, my son, who's six at the moment, you ask him anything and he'd be like, yeah. And I'm like, no, no, that's a yeah, no. Like, he, even if I know, he knows it's a no, but he'll be like, of course I know that.

And I feel like it's almost the same application for an adult. If someone says yes to things, you can sometimes tell it's a yeah, no. And it's like, just,

Rah: just say

Emily: no.

Rah: I believe you said that to me the other day when I wasn't so gung ho on a particular font and I went, oh, that's all right. And you went, dude.

You have a tiny voice. You can hear it immediately. But it's,

Emily: I think there's, You know, it's, it is that, right? It's the built in, I'm worried about fucking with someone's expectations of what I can do for them. And it's that fear. And it comes from everyone's, um, previous traumas and workplaces. That's where that comes from.

We've all been there. Um, but I think, so there it is. When someone does that. I know for me, if they say, look, I can't do this, I can't get to this at this point, like I'll do it another day. I know I immediately go,

Rah: yeah,

Emily: okay.

Rah: Yep. And one of the biggest learnings I had when I was getting some coaching to help say less of a yes and not just, you know, if they say jump, say how high.

And I say, this is someone who took it as a point of pride that I was the latest working staff member or the earliest arriving staff member. Like I had that kind of complex. Yep. Because I wanted to prove that I was more deserving. Yeah, of course. It's funny what we think we need to do. Oh yeah, um, when I had some coaching and they said you don't have to say no, you can just say Not right now.

Yes. Like. Yes. And even the act of saying, let me think about that and get back to you. Um, and even in one of my old jobs, um, when I was an executive assistant, um, I was involved with recruitment in high level education or high levels within education. One of the things that I learned in that process of being around that was that people could say in the interview, if they were given a question, they were like, can I just come back to that?

Can we just go to the next question? I just need a bait to think about it. I need to think about it. So if we, if you can ask the next question and I was like, what? That's an option.

Emily: I know. I don't think people realize that that is a choice and

Rah: that was, it blew my little clueless mind that even in an interview setting that you could take it to that point and just go, just give me a bait.

Yep. And I'll, yeah. You know, ask me what, where do I see myself in five years? And then while I'm answering that, I'm going to think of the answer. Yeah.

Christine: No, fantastic. Yeah. That's really good. And it's a really good pushback without coming across as a pushback.

Rah: Yeah. Yeah. And there's other ways that you can say no as well, apart from saying not right now.

But also, Something that I've done, um, quite a few times is if I'm not the right fit for somebody rather than saying I'm not the right fit, fuck off. I go, I feel this person is a better fit for you. Yeah,

Christine: absolutely.

Rah: And I, I was even doing that yesterday. Someone was asking if I do, had a particular service and technically I do.

Emily: Yeah.

Rah: But based on, I went and had a quick look. Yep. Scoped them out and I was like, I actually, and it was legitimate. Yeah. Yep. That someone else I know who we've met through networking. I was like, that person will nail it. Yes. Yes. I don't recommend people willy nilly.

Christine: No.

Rah: But yeah, I was like, no, no, no. This person, here's their email address.

Yep. They will look after you. And that's

Christine: seriously important. I was having a chat with one of our former clients this morning and she's a travel agent and she was telling me about something she did and it was about, um, you know, pushing back. A client who kind of like would ask, yeah, book me flights, um, on this date.

And I want a three bedroom villa on the beach, want this. And then, then she, and so this person went back and found all of that, did the quote and, um, the, her client then went back and said, Oh, I've changed the dates. It's cheaper to fly out on another day. You know, I booked, I booked something else. So totally changed the scope.

And this person often does a lot of their travel anyway. And she said, um, I'm clearly not the right travel agent for you, not the right fit and the empowerment of that. It felt strange to her and almost rude to her, but I think sometimes you just got to go, no, what? That's a boundary. I can't be used and abused for my level of expertise and my, you know, 20, 30 years worth of knowledge.

Um, I'm not the right fit and that's okay. Yep. We often don't have the opportunity to set up expectations, especially in our personal relationships, which often really do pinch with our boundaries. Um, and with professional ones, you sort of learn, learn by mistake and there's nothing wrong. Learning through failure and errors is so important.

Um, but you know, we might turn around, um, and sort of say, you know, You want to contact me. This is how you contact me for work. Um, if something's a little bit more urgent or shorter, this is another format you can use. And if it's urgent, give me a call, you know, that kind of thing. Um, so it's really important to set expectations around, and I think that support your boundaries and that is a communication thing.

We live in a world of such. Instant everything, and we have lots of solutions for short, instant messaging, slack and messaging. Which is

Emily: also, you know, fucked our boundaries. Oh, absolutely.

Christine: But when I was, you know, learning old school email etiquette in former life, if an email came in before midday, rule of thumb was that you would respond to it that day.

If an email came in after midday, you had to respond to it before midday the next day. Like you didn't have to be right on top of absolutely everything instantaneously. And of course, you know, that requires you to turn notifications off. I know some people, that's a real issue because they feel like they're going to miss stuff, but notifications and you don't have to respond to everything.

Immediately.

Emily: That's actually my biggest problem I have because I also manage other people's social media accounts and I have a whole bunch of other stuff going on. My phone goes berserk constantly and it does get to the point where it actually gives me anxiety. I have some people in my life

Rah: whose phone pings so many times that it, I start having a twitch and it's just my anxiety rises and it's not even my phone.

Christine: Yeah,

Emily: it's, it is, um, it's a tricky one.

Christine: Um, it is, it is. And, and I, and I appreciate that, you know, what I do in business, like my core key service is different to what you do, Em. So it is, it is easier for me. All my work is sitting in people's inboxes or sending to their inboxes and stuff. Um, so it's a hard one, but you know, you've got to, you've got to do it.

And I think sometimes you can go. To a client or a, or a friend or whatever. I'm like, I wouldn't normally do this now. I'll do it for you in this instance. And there's a fine line between that as well, but to make it special for you, I'll break this. Um, but I'm not advocating breaking boundaries.

Rah: I can't do this regularly,

Christine: but I see you're in

Rah: a pinch.

Christine: Yeah, absolutely.

Emily: I'm going to just twist this comment a little bit because we have, we have deep dived into the boundaries piece because I think there's also a few other points of self care that we could talk about and it's. You know, around the, as uh, the lovely title of the little research we've done has given us the Productivity Paradox.

Um, I love that, because it's actually sometimes doing less can actually achieve more. And it talks about the, we were just talking before we started about this too, about the benefits of regular breaks. And leisure activity, which is, you know, walking and whatever else, and working smarter and not harder.

Oh yeah. It's around, and I think, you know, we were all talking before, all three of us, our work requires us to sit at a computer screen, we all know. Um, and it's this, it's just getting up and moving around a bit more and not just sitting constantly. But I find that personally really hard because if I'm in the middle of something like a website build or, you know, I can't just be like, Oh, look, it's been 20 minutes.

I've got to stand up. It's not going

Rah: to happen. I'm almost done running that marathon. I'm just going to have a quick pee break.

Emily: Exactly. It's that kind of thing. So I find that a bit tricky and because we get, We all have so much to do, that it's like, I just can't justify it. Even though 10 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever, it's not actually that much.

But I also, for me too, I struggle with school drop off and pick up, because that limits the amount of time I have during the day to do anything. And so I can't, I can't just take a 20 minute break, because I feel like I don't do anything.

Rah: But then also, the reverse of, or the opposite end of that, is I don't have So I don't have, Oh, I need to be home in time to cook dinner for the kids even, like with you, with your son and heir, who's obviously older, you know, I don't have that, which means I can take my sweet ass time and I can edit an episode of the podcast while avoiding the thing that I need to get done before I log off for the day, because I can log off at seven if I need to, you know, I just know I need it done before I get up first thing in the morning.

Emily: And the benefit of that though, like for you is, is for me, you know, I go and pick up the kid in the afternoon and I find that pickup. Kills any productivity that I have, because I have to stop what I'm doing to go get them. By the time I get home, I'm like, I fucking don't want to do this anymore. And they

Rah: talk your ear off and tell you about all the things.

Yeah, and it's hard

Emily: to then want to not spend time with him for a little bit, because it's only at the moment until my other one starts school next year. It's the one on one part. Yep. And it's hard to like, then revitalize it. But then I find I do go, fuck, I actually need to do some more stuff. And I'll, I'll start again at about four o'clock.

And then I tend to work. Really late into the day, into night, um, and often finishing at like 9, 10 o'clock or later depending on what if I'm really hammering I'll work almost another eight hours.

Rah: And I reckon even though it's a mindfuck having to do that stop to pick them up and, or pick one of them up anyway, um, and do all that juggle, because you're taking that break, you're actually, when you get back to your computer at home, you're like, let's go.

I am, yeah, I do,

Emily: it's, I'm either really tired and comfortable, or I'm like, you know, I'm actually like, I've shaken a bit off now and I need to get going. Which means my working times are Really not nine to five because it's just not but this is what my whole argument with being a mother and even a corporate job There is no nine to five that doesn't exist

Rah: You know

Emily: and I know I personally need to get up a lot earlier and start training myself to do that I'm getting a

Rah: morning.

I'm not at all. I'm

Emily: getting

Rah: I need to train

Emily: myself into this I have to set

Rah: the alarm if I need to wake up at 9am

Emily: I have four alarms and I turn them off in my sleep, I'm that bad, like I'm that bad. I have trained myself to just roll over and get my phone without fully consciously waking up. It's

Christine: funny, I was, I woke up, um, somewhere before five o'clock this morning, I was going to get up at five 30, but when I set the alarm last night, it's like, Oh no, I can't get up at five 30.

I need seven hours between going to bed and alarms going off. Especially when you have to be podcast ready. That is so true. Well, I needed to put a Based on and do something with my hair. Cause I wasn't washing it today. Um, But yes, so I, my alarm was set for six, even though I'd been awake for an over an hour kind of thing, but I couldn't get up out of bed, but that's a new habit we're working on and a new boundary, um, kind of thing, um, as well.

Um, but yeah, the, the breaks are very, the regular breaks are very important. And. I think when you're an entrepreneur, you've got your own business, the biggest, um, health well being boundary piece we lose is that, um, and it's more than the weekends. It's the annual leave. It's so easy to be, um, working for somebody and getting paid.

Annual leave, but as a business owner, um, we it's leave without pay. So, or it's feeling like you can't have leave because you want to take time off, but you can't afford to not keep the money coming in. And that's a difficult piece, but a really, it's a health and wellbeing. It's a, it's a work health and.

Safety thing. I

Emily: think also it's that whole concept of the hustle and 24 seven that we all, you know, we all make a joke of it. We all use it for social media content and we all really do constantly work 24 seven, but it's the concept of the boundaries and knowing that that actually does burn you out and it does, you need to have that boundary.

You need to be able to go on a holiday and not take work with you. You need to. I actually know that I can shut down for a weekend and the world will monitor it. You need

Rah: to have your Saturdays off where you don't open up the

Christine: laptop. That's right. I mean, we're working on Mr. I'm turning 60 next year is, uh, has booked a cruise.

Yes. Um, and Honestly, that will be the most relaxing holiday you've ever had. Even if you get the seasickness. Well, oh no, I don't, I don't. Oh good, you'll be fine. My secret desire is to be on the Manly Ferry in a really bad Storm. Oh, that's where I really wanna be, but I'm never near manly when it, when that's bad.

When it's bad. Um, so the seasickness doesn't worry about me. It's probably will, it'll be the first time I will go away and not fully disconnected. Fully disconnected. Yeah. And I'm, and, and it's an anxiety piece.

Emily: You get even stressed talking about it. Um,

Christine: but you know, I've been on a cruise before and the Wi Fi on cruises, you pay, you've, you know, you give your left lung for, um, connectivity and it's stupid.

Um, and that will be a big, a big thing because I would have been in business for six, Years by then, and it'll be the first time that I will take a proper break and not take a laptop. Scary, scary, scary. Um, but very important. And for me, I think it's actually

Rah: a perfect place to be going. Cause it's not like, If you go to New Zealand or Europe in summer, like everybody else does, where you're still contactable and it's pretty easy to pull out an iPad even to do a bit of work.

Whereas with this. Yeah. Yeah.

Christine: Yeah. No, absolutely. So yeah, that, that regular break thing. And you're going to have the

Rah: best time running the business. When Chris is away.

Christine: She's gonna rule the school. She's gonna take over the world while I'm away. The power's gonna go to hell. You know what,

Emily: I'm gonna have to remind myself to go into the office.

I often don't go because I'm like, if Chris isn't there, I'm like, that's the benefit for me, is having Chris there. Um, otherwise I'm fucking lazy and I don't like having to get myself into a human being state. To get out of the house. But at least

Christine: you can come into the office and you don't have to front up visually for anybody.

No, exactly. No, and

Emily: I'll have to just remind myself to, um, not, you know, the days my husband works from home, be like, Oh, look at that, go get an office. And just go walk, walk in there. Cause I, and I find that easier as well. Cause he does the school pickup so I can stay for longer. Yep. Um, I'm going to be sitting there being like, what do I need to do?

Yeah. How does this work? I need someone to talk. I'm just going to talk at the wall and pretend it's

Rah: cool. Yep. But also I imagine that this is actually a good opportunity in preparation for that for you guys to have some systems set up that will make it easier to operate without one of you there.

Christine: Absolutely. And it also, yep. Like your standard operating procedures or SOPs,

Rah: which is the weirdest acronyms I get.

Christine: SOPs. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. Um, you know, get them together. It's around about, okay, who in the team is going to partner on a couple of clients that I currently do solo because I can't take the client work.

Well, what, Sorry, I'm not taking the client work with me. Excellent rephrasing. Um, so it's about that. And that's great because delegation is often, um, a really hard thing to do. And, and I think, um, inability. Um, for whatever reason to delegate, um, is an anti, um, self care, um, situation as well. Um, it's an anti business thing sometimes because we, you know, there is only one of you.

There is only so many hours in a day and, you know, if you've got work that is greater. 20 hours. Yeah. You need help . Outsource. Outsource. Yeah, absolutely. Outsourcing is key. Yeah. So we will outsource, um, and create more of that team workload culture as well in preparation for it. And it's a good opportunity to hone that before I, there is, I will not do a handover two days before I go on leave.

Oh God no. And it's also, you

Emily: know. We, we have a hit by loss theory that we talk about a lot. Oh my god, same. Everyone needs one. We, look, we're self confessed control freaks. We all are, I think, to an extent, too. So it's also just finally getting to that point where we know that Chris can just go away without Stressing that work is being done and also knowing that Chris just lets it go.

Because we've heard a bit of that as well. Oh yeah. Not very good at just letting it go.

Rah: Even though we know that your, the way you do things cannot be replaced. No. Like, and you as an entity. Yep. It's a stop film. You know, it's a gap film. It's, it's just a. That's all it is. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, we'd miss you.

Yep. We probably won't cope, but we will do our best. And we will make sure the client is still happy. Well, that's right. Or that the team is still happy. It's

Christine: keeping the home fires burning. Exactly. And that sometimes is just what has to happen. Yeah. Keep the fire burning down. It's not, you know. Exactly.

Emily: And it's not, it's not changing it forever. No. Yeah, no.

Christine: It's a nine day cruise. Yeah, that's it. You know, and

Emily: you need to be able to reset and recharge. And if you spend that whole time trying to force yourself to work while you do, it's not going to work. No, you're going to die. You're going to burn yourself out.

You're going to hate life. You need to actually be able to shut down. Yeah. And just, Sleep or breathe or whatever. Meet your katut. Yeah.

Christine: Wow. You know, and it will be great because it's a nine day South Pacific cruise. And luckily for me, I am not a beach babe. I don't do beaches. I don't do heat, um, but there's only three places to go, so there'll be more rest and relaxation.

Um, I'm not. Just sit out on that deck and drink, have them bring the drinks to you. Yes. Um, but you know, it'll be a lovely. Strange, oh yeah, recharge. So weird. So what are we going to do without you? Oh my god. But yes, it's very important for people to have regular breaks, depending on what time of year and what time of day it is.

And we do

Emily: have systems in place. You know, we've been leaning quite heavily into our ClickUp, which is our project management software at the moment, to manage our clients, manage our to do lists, manage, and we've got a beautiful OVM that works with us. Yep. As well and helps keep us on track. Yep. With the things that we need.

So with those input things combined with, you know, using the outs, using, leaning on the rest of our team to help cover off Chris's clients when she does go away, it allows to take the pressure off us as well and allows Chris to take a break. Which is the beauty

Rah: of the model that you guys have created.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Emily: So all of that stuff, it's all considered self care because it's self care. It's also protecting ourselves and protecting our business at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So,

Christine: you know, exactly. So, yeah, building some really sustainable business model and systems, um, is, is really what it is. So, so I suppose really in summary, you know, we're talking about self care.

So, you know, the fact that hustling 24 seven. It's stupid. Um, all the time, all the time. Absolutely. And sometimes we might have to do it. You know what? It needs to be, you know, the exception, not the rule.

Emily: So true.

Christine: Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Um, and yeah, doing less actually is, you know, creates more productivity, breathing, you know.

Emily: Being smarter. Oh yeah.

Christine: Oh dear.

Emily: Less fun and a lot harder.

Christine: Yep. Absolutely. And also taking your time.

Emily: There are little things that are self, you going and sitting and looking at the planes.

Christine: Yep. Or going and watching Hamilton

Rah: for the 24th time. That's right. Self care. Um,

Christine: and we talked when um, we had Mel Higgins on, interviewing her and I, I talked about the therapy that is a good hairdressing appointment.

Absolutely. I have my therapy this Thursday. Yes. I cannot wait. Yep. Yep. Cannot wait. It's going to be an awesome, brilliant few hours and I'm going to come back looking just more beautiful than I already am. Looking like

Rah: you just stepped out of a salon. Absolutely. Salon Selectives, people won't know what that means.

No, no. Iconic commercial. Absolutely. Um, yes. But yes, there's lots of ways to

Christine: do

Rah: the

Christine: self care. You know, to our wonderful listeners, it'd be fabulous to know what kind of self care practices that you've put in place or are trying to put in place. That would be very Yeah, we'd love to hear it. Yeah. So hit us

Rah: up on our socials.

Yeah. Go to the show notes and tap on the, send us a text. Yep. Do ducky and um, yeah, we'd love to hear about them because then we can learn.

Christine: Yeah, well, absolutely. So damn important. Yeah. Yes. Well,

Rah: thanks for joining us, everybody.

Christine: Oh my God.

Rah: Yeah. Always love talking to

Christine: you too. Me too. Let's go grab a go. Grab a cocktail.

I think we will. We're, uh, thank you to the Bella Vista, uh, podcast studio, one of our homes. We're trialing a couple just to keep it interesting, pretty nomadic, um, absolutely where we need to be. But, um, yeah, no, thank you very much for, um, listening today. Talk to you guys soon. What up? What up?

Bye.