It's all about shaking up your business routine and embracing the power of FUN as a strategic move. Discover how infusing fun into your work not only transforms your mindset but also supercharges your selling game.
From making tracking and budgeting more enjoyable to finding the win/win of fun for both you and your clients, Jess dives deep into the playful side of entrepreneurship. Plus, she shares her own "fun first" hacks, including 15-minute breaks filled with porch swings, family walks, and quick phone dates.
Tune in and learn why scheduling fun first is the secret sauce to building resilience, enjoying the process, and leveling up your business game!
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Website: https://www.sincerelyfutureyou.com
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*This Transcript is Autogenerated*
Jessica McKinley Uyeno 0:00
If I don't put fun on my calendar first, I find that there's no room for it. I'll put all the work stuff, I'll put all the stuff for the kids, I'll put all my goal setting or skill, building things, all the areas where I want to catch up or be a good citizen or whatever it is that I'm trying to accomplish. And then you know what I get to that day, and I feel exhausted before I even start, I look at my calendar, and I don't really want to show up for it. Welcome to sincerely future you a podcast that helps ambitious women like you and make decisions today with the future you in mind. You're listening to sincerely future you the podcast, this is your coach, Jess McKinley, bueno. And this is episode 201. Time scheduling fun first. So you want a big life and a big business lfgb baby. But before we dive into the topic, we got to get your height, we got to get your body in line with your mind. And that means making sure that you feel as excited as your action plan dictates. And this message today, it's going out to all of you tow dippers out there. Those of you who are saying things like I'm trying, I really think I need to find the right thing. support my small business, I hope it works. This better work. This is my last attempt before throwing in the towel. I wish I had a more supportive spouse, family or group of friends. You know what the underlying messages of all of those expression, you are not all in, you believe that someone else is partially responsible for making your business work. You believe that it's your clients, your significant other team, or the algorithms or even your coaches job to make you money. This is a thought error. It is not anyone else's responsibility, but our own to create our results. And the more that we redirect our focus to what those people should be doing, the less you're growing as a CEO. I'm trying to think of the best way to phrase this so that you can let your walls down enough to question if this is you that's doing this because unfortunately, most toe dippers aren't in the habit of looking inward. And if they do, they do it in a self deprecating way, or a really self critical way, instead of constructively in a way that learns and help them help them show up better. So here's the high quality question. Are you showing up right now with all in energy? What would you do in January? If you knew that it created your results in December? Are you can and balling into the deep end determined to learn how to swim? Or are you dipping your toe thinking? Okay, I'll see how it feels. And then maybe if the perfect equation lines up and the temperature is right, and the wind is just so then I'll jump in? are you evaluating with neutral honesty telling yourself the truth of what is working? What's not working? And what you want to do differently? Or are you just beating yourself up and then trying to show up again tomorrow from a place of shame and defeat, I am really just interested in coaching people who aren't open to thinking differently to create a new reality. Because if I can give you all of the sales scripts, my exact business model that I use to create the last five years of multiple hundreds of 1000s of dollars. In fact, I already give that to all of my email list in the form of an annual review each year. This one's coming out soon. So go get on that email list. The link is in the show notes or you can get on there at sincerely future you.com. But the truth is, my thoughts are what created those results. And if you do the same thing, the same exact plan that I laid out for you from a place of victimhood, entitlement confusion, comfort or self doubt, you're going to create a abysmal results. And you are made for so much more. Come on, baby. Come on. It's game on rip the band aid jump in the water is fine. Okay, so the water is a little cold. But science shows polar punches are really good for you. And now that you're hype, we can dive into today's episode. And now that you're all hyped, we can start talking about the hypest thing of all scheduling. But really, guys, I think scheduling is fun, which is why I've committed a whole portion of my life to teaching time management because I found ways to think of it so that it feels fun. And good news. Fun is actually a business strategy. So now we can stop being so black and white with what we think, where we think fun belongs in our business. Okay. So first we need to understand why, why is it important to schedule fun first in your day now, this is a actual strategy and a part of my scheduling course that I teach and you get access to in the masterful CEO school. It is a part of what I teach when I run the rewire your time boot camps, which I did last year, and people loved and we're going to do again this year. So stay tuned for that. But the reason why is because when we go to Schedule, we're accessing a different part of our brain, we're using the prefrontal cortex, and that part of our brain, it's a little overzealous, it doesn't account for our moods, or our energy levels, or the fact that yes, there is a sense of fuel that we have in terms of energy from decision making and energy from, you know, working and thinking so many hours in advance. So if we are scheduling for a full week ahead, our brain is going to think, oh, yeah, I could do all of this. I have so many people write into me saying or ask for coaching on the fact that like, Okay, I didn't, I didn't get anything done. Not anything, I didn't get all of the things that I wanted to get done on my list. And what I'm noticing is that maybe I'm overloading myself. Yes, you probably are in the beginning, that's such a common beginner scheduling. mistake in it's not your fault. It's because your prefrontal cortex is going to guide you to overload it's going to put on only the the hard working things that we want to do because our prefrontal cortex has our best interest. It's the parts of us, that allows us to plan for a future life that is in our highest well being okay. It's the part of our brain that's most likely to say, we'll eat a salad for lunch tomorrow. It's, it's the part of your brain that when you're at the grocery store buys all the things that when you're in the moment, you end up throwing out because you're like, I don't feel like eating this trash. But your prefrontal cortex was like, but we know it's good for you. Right? So how do we partner with that, we do that by putting fun on the calendar first, I find and I found over, you know, perfecting and perfecting is the wrong word. But
you know, continuing to adapt my scheduling strategies year after year based on the results that I'm getting is that if I don't put fun on my calendar, first, I find that there's no room for it, I'll put all the work stuff, I'll put all the stuff for the kids, I'll put all the of my goal setting or skill, building things, all the areas where I want to catch up or be a good citizen, or whatever it is that I'm trying to accomplish. And then you know what I get to that day, and I feel exhausted before I even start, I look at my calendar, and I don't really want to show up for it, I only want the results of being on the other side of this day. That is not good thing, my friend, we want to make sure that not only are we creating an incredible life in the future, but that we also are enjoying the process of showing up to it and that we can show up to it in a sustainable way that can create those long term results that we want. So my strategy is to make sure you're scheduling fun first, watch out for your brains tendency to want to do that. I know that I need to explain this to some of you because you probably believe that if you schedule fun first, you're not going to have room for everything all the important stuff right? So I need to let you know you will not be able to sustainably show up to that important stuff if you're not putting fun first. So if you're one of those overachievers This is especially true for you, we need the fun stuff to go on there first. Number two, Why else do we want to schedule fun first, because of how we show up when fun is in the F line. So I coach using the self coaching model which means that I'm looking at how your thoughts are creating your feelings, how your feelings are driving your actions and how those actions are producing your results. When I look at the results that are the most exciting the most consistent the results that are massive in terms of revenue or in terms of clients coming in or client satisfaction, deliver, et cetera. It's because of the feelings being really aligned with the actions. It's because you're not just trying to take action from a place where you're grinding, right? Grinding, to me is the definition of taking action. That doesn't feel good. But knowing that, okay, I'm just gonna grind it out doesn't feel good, but I'm just gonna do it anyway, consistently until I get the results. That's just not sustainable. There are ways to show up. And of course, we want to show up in to certain things, even when we're not feeling it, we don't always have to feel fun in order to deliver to our business. Of course not. But the feelings that we're feeling is a contagious frequency, your feelings are a frequency. And if you're having fun, you're selling is going to be easier. Like I said, there are a lot of parts of business that require you to be in it for the long game that you test, tweak, fail, evaluate, rinse, and repeat, for sure. Fun is one of those things that you can shift in your business in a moment, I can infuse fun into my email. Today, I can add a bonus or a challenge to an offer, and simply decide to say something bold online. And that can feel fun and thrilling to me. It makes showing up to non fun actions, more fun, I find ways to think about tracking and budgeting in scheduling so that it's a game. That's why you guys know I love you need a budget. I love YNAB because it feels like a game to me. Also fun, it reduces the need to escape or take breaks from your business. It builds resilience, it makes failure more palatable. And it eliminates that internal dialogue that I know some of you guys have about quitting, or about how long can I handle this? You don't want to have to handle your business, you want showing up to your business to feel fun. This is always about the power of a high quality question. So my favorite high quality question that we've been working on in masterful CEO school right now with my clients is how can I make this more fun? And so I asked this as the high quality question last week in my group. And here is what came out for my students in the Maxwell CEO school. One, she helps people track macros, Now similar to scheduling and but budgeting that may not feel fun. But the truth is for her, she does think it's fun. So I challenged her to ask what makes it fun to you? Why does it feel like a game? What are you focusing on that makes macros fun. Whereas to other people, it might feel boring to other people, they decided they needed to get a little weirder in their marketing, they decided they needed to engage their people more. And another high quality question is how can you find the win win? Have fun, both for your clients and for you, in your delivery? Your marketing your selling? If you didn't sell anything? Would you have enjoyed the process? Ask yourself that truly. And if not, we got to change something. Now I can hear those of you who are thinking, okay, cool, Jess, that's nice for you. And those clients that have fun as a part of their brand, when you're a solopreneur, or you're a service provider and your brand is fun. But what if fun isn't a part of your business's brand? Is this episode just really not for me? Some people have resistance to this question because their brand is meant to be serious. And that's okay. I have a colleague who is a grief coach, I would never recommend that she necessarily try to make her marketing, more fun. This episode isn't just about marketing, though. It's about how you spend your time in your business. That means the planning, the marketing, the selling the delivering, doing admin, evaluating goal setting all of it and on a grander scale, asking, How do I spend my weeks? What else do I want to do outside of my business building activities? And how can I make my days more fun. So I'm gonna give you some of my fun first that I put on my calendar on a regular basis so that you can get an idea of some examples of what I'm talking about. So one of my favorite things to do is put in 15 minute breaks between everything I found over time that this is the way that my brain works. My brain loves to be thrown a bone a little break a little thing to look forward to. So generally in between client meetings, I have 15 minute breaks in between any transition I have 15 minute breaks. So I would put in porch swing Hey In a family walk, a quick phone date, a social media scroll, I'll post all chat with my husband who works right next door, I'll make a tea or a snack, I squeeze my baby, or I'll simply do nothing for 15 minutes. Doesn't that sound so fun? Sometimes they even just take a quick power nap. But here is for those of you who struggle with rest, and in general are in resistance to this concept. Some of you are gonna be like fun first got it, nailed it, love it. But others of you, if you're resisting, you may have to specifically schedule these fun breaks. If your tendency is to always try and catch up or do more to validate your enoughness or your goals being possible, you have to make sure that you don't allow yourself to swap fun time for sneaky chores. Sometimes I do this, sometimes I'll fold laundry in those 15 minutes. If it feels like okay, cool. This will alleviate my day. Or if my day got a little off track. I'm like, Oh, I have a 15 minute break. That's fine. I'll work through it. That'll make me feel more on track. But I always check in first to see if I'm in a habit of booking over my fun time. And you'll know it based on how you feel. Aside from just the 15 minute breaks, I look at how do I incorporate fun on a monthly basis. So I have standing date nights with my husband. In fact, this year, we just decided to get a standing reservation at our favorite restaurant. And so that's really fun. The staff knows we're coming. They look forward to it. We look forward to it. It's really fun. We book our family travel in advance. I am a part of a book club. So I know that I'm always going to see three of my closest friends. In that month, month and a half time I go to networking gigs I get out in person once a month, pretty much on average, I am finding ways to challenge myself in workouts maybe signing up for races and whatnot. I scheduled playdates regularly with my kids and their friends, were going to a concert next month, I'll put random bucketlist shit on my schedule, right when I know that there's something to look forward to. It helps me dive down deep into the business without feeling like a grind. It feels like okay, I'm in this and I'll be in that it feels like the ebb and flow like the natural state that people call balance whatever that means to you, we need to find it for you. I know some people say they don't believe in balance. But to me, it's just a reframe. Balance really is about thinking about the work and the play, and finding a way that serves your brain and your future self daily. So daily fun, I look at Fun skills.
So speaking Spanish and practicing Spanish, that's a bit of agonizing funds, sometimes, song writing, doing calligraphy, I will change out the chalkboard of my menu because that feels fun. To me. It looks beautiful. I do little organizing projects or home projects around the house. My husband and I both really enjoy that. So that's the way we like to bond. And then I also like to implement routines and rituals, morning routines, like working out naturally makes my day always feel more fun because I've got endorphins. I like challenges. So I've done many series just to spice up my relationship with social media. So I've done high quality question series on social media, or I'll show up right after a workout sweaty and do something like that. So it feels fun to me to show up. And also all find fun processes. So if coming up with content is not fun for you find a process to do to do that. Sometimes I just like to write out lists. One thing that I do is PSP, er, an old coach taught me this, it's, you write out your client's problem, solution, process and results. And then you go ahead and you just have that as an access for your future self that feels fun. It made content planning so much simpler and more fun for me. Now, I hope that this whole list of fun planning was extra fun. But before I let you go, I have to shout out the client of the week Nicole. Nicole is the owner of the bubbly kitchen and her brand new business this year called Emerald isles, a destination Irish wedding planning business. I'm pretty sure it shattered out in the cold months and months ago for her wild results in mastering scheduling the last round of the masterful CEO school. But that's why she was showing up to time because she wanted to pursue this new business venture and find a way to make sure that she was still getting married, buying a home getting a puppy focusing on her personal adventure life as well. But now in this round, she's learning not only to take the skill that she learned with time management that we're talking about today. She's learning to slow down there and take more time to herself All while dialing up her money goals, she shifted this round into working on money. This is the process you guys that she used to transform in her money, goals, she committed to feeling more comfortable in her body. She's practicing no longer describing herself as awkward. Those thoughts weren't creating the SEO experience that she wanted in her selling and her marketing. And she needed to be willing to feel silly, and ridiculous and uncomfortable. And also guess what? Fun in her marketing, and coming off the energy of the live event that we had last weekend where we were all together, and we were feeding off each other and having ideas and getting it all set up for 2024. She is created in one week, seven consults for Ireland destination wedding planning, she has sold three so far at the last time that I spoke to her, and she has had her highest earning month yet, I am so proud of you, Nicole, you have clearly in the fun and in the flow. Your energy of fun is so contagious. She's been just lighting up the room for all of us. And I hope that it's contagious for you listeners as well, you guys, I say until I'm blue in the face. But the business strategy is only half of the equation, you can only scratch the surface applying these podcast episodes, you have to get inside coaching either one on one masterful CEO school or the splashpad so that you can see what's in your way. I love this analogy someone gave me years ago, probably 10 years ago that they said thought management is like you being inside of a tomato sauce jar, let's say your tomato sauce jar, and you're trying to create an incredible recipe with your tomato sauce. But the recipe is on the outside of the label. And you're looking at me the coach just reading the label and reflecting back to you your thoughts, your feelings and your actions. And you're like, Oh my God, you're a genius. How did you know how to create this incredible recipe and I'm like, the recipes on your label. Hide just on the outside of it. That is what a coach does. That is what applying this work in real time. And with your actual situation is like so like I said, it's not just the lack of an action plan. I give you so much strategy hear on the podcast. That's 1/3 of the cocktail. Nicole's biggest results came from changing her thoughts and feelings. And if you're ready to level up in all three, go to sincerely future you.com and get in the room. Book a console if you're feeling unsure of which room is for you. But don't skip out on this step you guys. Your life in business is a combination of how you spend your time. We're told, spend your time wisely. But what does that even mean? I'm going to offer that it means we're solving for two things that we spend our time in a way that yields a net positive result for our future selves. That's what this podcast is about. But also that we spend it in an energy that lights us up in the now. Have a beautiful weekend my friends
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