Freelance writer, editor, and business coach Jenni Gritters joined us as our guest for our May Harlow Office Hours Zoom Q&A, Mastering Mindfulness, where we discussed developing a mindfulness routine as a solopreneur, prioritizing personal well-being, setting boundaries, and more.
Jenni works with fellow solopreneurs and small business owners on writing projects and strategic business planning. In addition to her coaching and freelance practice, Jenni has a monthly newsletter called Mindset Mastery that’s full of real-life stories and exercises for solopreneurs who want to prioritize their well-being and incorporate mindfulness into their day-to-day.
Follow along with Jenni on Twitter and LinkedIn!
Transcript:
Andrea
Harlow’s an all-in-one freelance tool as well as a community and our goal is to help freelancers grow thriving businesses. With us today is Samantha, my co-founder, who is on mute because she is sick and not well today, and Madi, our wonderful Community manager who a lot of you are probably familiar with.
Before we dive in just a couple of housekeeping items – I know a lot of people couldn’t join us today, so this session will be recorded. If there’s somebody that you want to send this over to, we’ll send over a link to the recording. Afterward this session, it’ll be available on YouTube and our website.
Today will be a 45-minute session on mastering mindfulness and prioritizing your well-being with the amazing Jenni Gritters. We’re so excited to have you with us today! We have a handful of questions that were sent over to us beforehand that will go ahead and start with, but if you have any questions during this Q&A, please drop them in the chat or you can raise your hand using the raised hand icon. We’ll call on you and we’ll let you chime in so can participate in any way that feels comfortable and good to you.
Before we get to the questions, Jenni, would you mind giving a quick intro and telling everybody a little bit about yourself?
Jenni
My name is Jenni Gritters and I am a business coach for freelancers and creative entrepreneurs, so most of my clients are individual workers – most people are solopreneurs, and a lot of them are freelancers. I’m also a freelance writer and editor. My background is as a journalist, so that’s how I started my career over a decade ago. Things have changed a lot but I still do a lot of writing. I also live in Central Oregon with two tiny children – an almost one-year-old and a three-and-a-half-year-old. So, my life is very full. I work mostly part-time or three-quarters time depending on the week. I also have a background as a yoga teacher and a meditation teacher, too, so you’re going to hear all these things kind of married together in the way that we talk about running a business.
Today, my focus on running a business is really teaching people how to run sustainable businesses that work through seasons of life that are challenging, difficult, or complex. We all end up dealing with those at times and sort of prioritizing our life over our business and having a relationship between our life and work that feels really good.
At the end of this session, I’ll share more resources and things about how you can you can work with me in the future. But, yeah that’s me in a nutshell!
Andrea
Awesome! I feel like you touched on this a bit in your freelance interview series, but our first question for you is what does mindfulness mean to you and why is it so important?
Jenni
Of course! That’s a great question. So when I think of mindfulness, I think of being present and literally noticing what’s going on and being mindful. I would say that that’s very counter to the way our culture teaches you to work. You know, the hustle culture mindset is pretty opposite of being mindful. You’re going going going, you’re moving really fast, you’re often not checking in and, to me, running a sustainable business is about actually checking in and being present. Having a lovely life is about experiencing the present moment. So, to me, when I say mindfulness I think of being in the here and now, and when I teach my clients to be more mindful about their businesses, they’re also able to be more intentional about what they’re building.
So mindfulness sounds like this “woo-woo” word, but, I think for a lot of my clients – and for me – it’s a weekly check-in of how things are going, how I feel in my body “is this working, what needs to change,” and so on. It’s having moments where you’re touching down on Earth instead of just speeding along and it’s a different approach to running a business. Frankly, it’s not what we’re taught in school and it’s not what you would learn at a university. It’s really counter. But as a person who has a lot going on in my life and someone who has mental health challenges – I have a panic disorder and have two young kids – I can’t move at that pace and not check in, or I end up in a corner where things are really compressive and I feel like I’m not doing the type of work I want to be doing. So, when I say mindfulness, that’s what I mean – sort of that check-in and that awareness. It’s what we learned in our first jobs, right? Be reactive, if your boss needs something, get it to him immediately. I personally carried this mentality with me into freelancing of “Oh my gosh a client needs something they’re gonna think I’m terrible if I don’t respond right away or if I’m not like on Slack 24/7”. For me, it was really hard to let that go and put in place some boundaries.
Andrea
What inspired you to really focus on this mindset shift in your coaching practice and your business?
Jenni
By doing the opposite. My very first job was at a viral media company and I was working probably three people’s jobs in one person’s body. I was that person that you could go to to ask questions and I would know the answers. I would get it done really fast and so much of my identity was really built around reactivity and it fried me. So I worked at that job for two years and I left without a job to step into because I literally could not keep going. My mental health was suffering, my body didn’t feel good, and I was on a laptop for 12 hours a day. That was eight years ago I would say it’s been a very slow evolution and I still, when I’m stressed, will step back into that reactive space. Again, it’s been a slower evolution over time to sort of dismantle some of those thoughts, like am I still going to have good work? Am I still going to have clients if I slow down a little? As my life has gotten more complex, it’s almost become like I don’t have a choice anymore. I do have to use these tools and, frankly, I get a lot of people in my coaching practice who have the same story – they’re burnt out and they feel like
they’re running a business that’s not exactly aligned with their needs and they can’t figure out how to make the switch. So, I started teaching this over and over again and eventually realized that this happens about two to three years in for most people in a freelance business – the reactivity, the being always available – these things aren’t sustainable long-term for most people.
Andrea
How do you incorporate mindfulness into your routine and into your business?
Jenni
I have a lot of what I call “touch points.” I’m really not a lover of habits because those are very rigid in most people’s minds. Every day I wake up and do the same thing and so on. I’m not the same person with the same needs every day, my children don’t wake up at the same time every day. For me, having those very regular concrete practices doesn’t work. So, I have rituals or touch points. I do a lot of walking, which is one of the things for me. It’s very mindful, it gets me back into my body, and I get my best business ideas when I’m moving. That’s a mindfulness ritual that I have Sunday evenings. I sit down and reflect on what I need to do for the week ahead which is also a mindful ritual because I’m not just planning my days based
on my inbox, which is so easy to do. But, I’m actually figuring out what is the most meaningful work I can be doing. I also stand up and try to take a deep breath every hour. Sometimes I need to shake out my body because I’ve been holding it weirdly or because I’ve been on Zoom. I also do a yoga nature meditation every night before bed so I can slow my brain down. Those are my touch points when I’m working with people, like “What are your full feet back on the ground touch points throughout the week?” and those will be different for everybody. We don’t all need to have a fancy morning routine, and, for a lot of people, that actually is not waking up at 6:00 am to meditate and drink warm water and do yoga. I wish it was! But it’s more frustrating than helpful oftentimes when we try to slot ourselves into these predetermined ideas of what would be good for us because it’s so individual and about what feels good to you and what slows you down.
Andrea
Do you have any recommendations for implementing mindfulness techniques to help manage clients?
Jenni
Yeah, this is where the reactive versus intentional shows up in your business shows up. People get offered an assignment and you say “yes” right away. It’s reactive and that’s because that is how you have probably run your business since the start. It’s like survival and so the way that we start working in that mindful pause is by taking a moment between the email that says “do you want to do this work?” and your response – there’s a Victor Frankl quote that states that between stimulus and response, there’s a space and in that space is where there’s freedom. So, we’re not robots, things don’t just happen and we respond, there is a moment, and in that moment between the project offer and the yes – or no – is where you start to get a little more control. I usually help my coaching clients figure out a little checklist of questions to ask during that pause, so you train yourself to turn off your email, put your email on pause, or have a canned email that says something like, “I’ll get back to you in 24 hours” then, you go for a walk, then you come back and there are these questions you ask:
Is this project aligned for me right now?
Is the pay right?
Do I want to do this?
What would be the cost of doing this?
So, you start to sort of interrogate to determine if this is working for you. That’s the first little step that I have people take toward moving in the direction of being a little more mindful and intentional.
Madi
I love that advice. I’m a yes girl, I say yes to everything very fast and that’s always been something that I do. I’ve noticed that especially in friendships and personal relationships I’ll sign myself up for something even if I don’t want to do it and then I dread it. So I think that
Advice resonates in so many different areas of your life. Take some time step away and really think, “Do I want to do this for real or am I just saying yes because I think that that’s what’s expected of me.”
Jenni
Yes, because it’s safe to say yes, too, right? I think for a lot of us that’s been our training. I didn’t grow up in a family where you would really say no and it seemed like there were consequences to saying no, so it is sort of training your nervous system in little ways with friends and relationships and things like that so you feel safe. Also, then you don’t have to cancel last minute after dreading it for five days right?
Madi
Or go and be in that mindset that you’ve been dreading it for so long that there’s no way you’re going to have fun and you’re also gonna kill the vibe for everyone else because you’re already in that negative headspace.
Jenni
Yep, exactly and that’s what happens with clients, too, right? The drag of the dread means projects take you longer, you’re not making as much money, and your business starts to slow down. It’s also a bad business decision to say yes to things that are misaligned and burnout is a result of misalignment. Burnout isn’t just because you’re working too hard, it’s connected to your value system and doing what feels good to you, and then you’re doing something that is not aligned with that and it erodes and starts to feel really horrible. Your nervous system doesn’t feel right. I always tell people that it’s not selfish, it’s actually better for everyone involved. There are always freelancers out there who might love that project, even if it’s not right for you. But it is a tough switch to make. Saying “no” is really hard for most of us.
Andrea
I definitely have more of a scarcity mindset when it comes to freelancing. I get so scared that
the next thing isn’t going to come along, especially in this market right now. How do you stay true to yourself when you know you should do something, but you’re terrified?
Jenni
You figure it out and tell me! My best advice is this – sometimes you do make the decision and you feel really good and then sometimes it feels safer to take the thing anyway. It’s a both
and. One of the exercises I’ve been working with lately with clients is that abundance is a very squishy word, right? And scarcity is the idea that there’s like not enough and abundance is the idea that there’s endless everything. We’ve started to work on noticing abundance in other parts of our lives because scarcity is a very capitalist thing that’s ingrained in our entire way of being. So your brain is not trained to even have an awareness of there being enough, that’s not normal in terms of the way we live. But starting to notice it like “Wow look how many trees there are!” or “Oh there’s enough air to breathe,” you know like those basic things start to switch your brain just a little bit and then you also take those small risks, right? You’re not saying no to the $2,000 thing, you’re saying no to the $500 things, and you start to get more used to it, but it’s really a complicated cocktail. This is why coaching is great because we sit for an hour and dissect what your brain thinks is gonna happen and whether or not it’s true and what you would do if it happened. Walk down the road a little so you feel like you have a fallback plan, too.
Andrea
How has practicing mindfulness changed your business?
Jenni
My son was born three months before the pandemic started, and I had a really rough pregnancy. I had PTSD after he was born, and he was in the NICU, which was genuinely horrible. I couldn’t go back to work in the same way, unsurprisingly. The pandemic added another layer of complexity. The more I did internal work and practiced presence, the more I realized I had to change my business model. I worked 15 hours a week for the entire first year and a half of his life and still made enough money. I had to make intentional choices about who to work with and who not to work with.
Adjusting my business to match the season I was in has changed my business structure over and over again. I’ve made frequent pivots, such as leaving the company I was running with Houdinien. I adjust my schedule, client load, and the work I’m doing based on my capacity and needs. The result for me has been frequent pivots, which is complex but also the benefit of running a business is you have that choice, you have that ability. So, do I need to turn up the volume? Do I need to turn down the volume? Do I need different clients to meet these financial needs? It’s like those little practical questions that adjust my schedule, my client load, and the work I’m doing based on the capacity I have in my brain. I do a lot more coaching now because that’s the season I’m in, but that may not always be true.
Andrea
Are those small decisions and pivots happening in real-time as you’re running your business, or do you actually schedule these reflective periods where you analyze what’s been going on and what you need?
Jenni
I do a lot of reflection because otherwise, I won’t notice necessarily. I will feel sort of dread and frustration, but I won’t know what actively I need to do to fix that unless I sit down. I have a very structured process. Once a month, I sit down offline, no computer, no phone. There’s a Bookshop in my town that has an attic, so I go sit in the attic with colored pencils, and I ask myself these questions: What is working? What’s not working? I audit my clients, figure out what my capacity needs to be, how many hours do I actually have, and what’s my brain feeling like? Based on that, I’ll make a little to-do list of things to tweak. I don’t think it’s possible to make these changes when you’re in the forest; you need to step back a little to see what’s going on. This is what I do in coaching too, so when people come in and do business audits, that’s what we’re doing. We’re asking what’s working, and what’s not, and then we can make little tweaks about once a month.
Andrea
Talk to us a little bit about boundaries and what boundaries you’ve set up with clients to help you and how you use those boundaries to protect your own well-being.
Jenni
Boundaries are hard for most of us, and we often think of them as brick walls and “None Shall Pass,” and then somebody tries to, and we get really angry. The way I like to think about boundaries is that it’s kind of a negotiation. So, you’re going to put your needs on the table, your client’s going to put their needs on the table, and then you’re going to figure out what works for you. I do have boundaries around availability. I am not available in the evenings to my clients. I say I’m available Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 10 to 3, and that’s when I’m going to get emails from them, and that’s when I might be able to respond. Otherwise, I have a 24-hour lag time, basically. That’s in all my emails, so that’s a clear boundary that I have because I have small children, and they are with me On Thursdays and Fridays most of the time, so that’s important to me. But again, sometimes there are clients who have needs outside of those hours, and I’ll work with them to figure out how to accommodate those needs without taking something from myself, basically. So, that’s important to me. I really like to work with people who are kind, so I will sometimes say no to projects or work in a coaching relationship if someone is abrasive or makes me feel not great. I try to protect my emotional well-being in that way.
Then I have a lot of boundaries in the workplace around how many rounds of edits clients get. That’s all showing up in the contract. When are you going to pay me? How are you going to pay me? What’s the length of this project? There are some very specific guidelines that I have with my clients to make sure that I am protected, and that we have similar expectations for what’s going in. Again, I’m offering what I need, they’re asking for what they need, and we’re sort of creating a tapestry of needs in a contract. So, that feels important to me too. That’s why contracts matter.
Andrea
Yeah, definitely. We put a lot of things in our contract around that. And Samantha is always very good at creating boundaries around communication as well. Like, I’m not going to respond, we’re not going to join your Slack room. We can have a dedicated Slack channel, but we’re not going into your company’s Slack because we would never get our project done and just be reacting.
Jenni
Yeah, exactly. So, I don’t do attending meetings. I don’t want to be involved in the company or whatevers going on. I’m like a hired hand. I’m going to come in, I’m going to do the thing, and I’m going to leave. So, those are the questions again that, like, when you take that pause between the offer and the yes, sometimes the answer is maybe, if. That’s this list. Maybe if I could do this project in two months and I had three weeks to do it and you were paying me this and the communication was XYZ, then it would work for me. And that’s what you pitch back to them. So, it is part of that. I call it your business rule book. Most of my clients will create a little business rule book that they have on a sticky note in their computer so that when they get in those moments, they’re reminded of, “Oh, those are the things that are important to me so that this project feels really good.” Not every project does, but most of them do with that intentionality in place.
Andrea
Yeah, I love that. That’s a good idea to just write it down.
Samantha
Well, I was just thinking about Andrea and my previous experiences, and for us, toward the probably the second and third year of our freelancing career was when we started including a lot of those boundaries in our contracts and actually putting them in writing. But for us, we really had to go through some mishaps to get to the point where we started including those things, right? It was like a learning experience. Okay, and the next contract we’re going to include this, and the next contract we’re going to include this. So, I was just wondering if that’s what happened to you. Did you kind of Have to experience a mishap and then set a boundary, or did you think through your boundaries very clearly from the early stages?
Jenni
Oh no, I only learned them from them being stepped on because I felt angry, right? Because when you’re angry, it’s because the need hasn’t been met, and that’s a sign that that’s a boundary you probably want to set with a future client. I’m thinking about, like, I had two or three clients right when I started freelancing who were just the worst fit for me. I mean, everything they were asking me to do, the way they were communicating with me, all the things, it was just not good. And I made a lot of money from those projects, but it wasn’t ultimately a fit. So, I think you’re exactly right. The only way to learn it is through not getting it and then realizing you need it. And that is most of the people who come into my coaching room around two to three years. That’s why this is the conversation that we’re having, right? What got you here doesn’t get you there. And at two to three years, you have enough confidence usually that the process, there are clients out there who are going to meet your needs that you’re willing to start setting some of those lines in the sand, if you will, with who you’re going to work with and who you’re not going to work with.
Andrea
Do you have any recommendations for freelancers that are at that exact point, right? They’ve hit this mark of like, “Okay, I know I can be successful, but man, this isn’t sustainable. Where do you start?”
Jenni
Yeah, I’m actually running a coaching group this fall for this exact group of people because I have a long waitlist, and like most of them are in this space. The group will be called Sustain. If you follow me, you’ll see information about it. It’s a monthly program. But I start with asking some of those big questions about what you want because usually what you want has changed two to three years in. What you wanted at the beginning was to run your own business, and you did it because now you’re three years in. However, now it’s done enough. You know, that was survival. And so, what’s next? And so, we’re asking some of those more significant questions. What do you want? What do you care about? What do you value? What feels good? What are you excited about? Some of it is that self-interrogation again, like mindful awareness. And then we’re building those thoughts and needs into your business.
So, the question is, okay, which of these clients meet those values? Okay, this one doesn’t, so we’re going to make a little game plan on how to pull them out and recruit a new client. Usually, in this phase, there’s a need to find new clients because the clients who worked for you don’t work for you anymore based on pricing and the way they treat you. There’s a need for a different business infrastructure usually, in terms of your schedule, in terms of the way you’re invoicing things like that because you’ve sort of been making it work, and now you need something that’s going to work for like 10 years. And then we do a lot of planning. What’s going to happen in six months, nine months? What big projects are on your radar, and how do you start picking at them? This is when people start touching on some of those ambitious creative projects, usually books, you know, something they want in their portfolio that they don’t have, so there’s a lot of stuff.
This is why I’m going to do a group on it, and every month I’ll have a different theme because there’s also a lot of money stuff that comes up at this point too in terms of rate pricing, confidence, all of “I want to make more money, how do I do that?” All of that is wrapped up in getting your needs met, well, so hitting the financial things. So, it’s very multi-pronged. I could talk about it for a year, which is why it needs to be a program, but most people hit this point two or three years in. It’s almost everybody I know, they do.
Samantha
One, I love that you’re running that group and that it’s called “Sustain.” It’s just like a really, really beautiful and I remember hitting all of those exact same pain points in our business. Can you talk to us a little bit, you know, outside of that group, who kind of hits these pain points at year two or three? Where else are your sweet spots for coaching and helping people bring mindfulness in? Are there other specific moments in the journey for freelancers and small business owners that they could really benefit from coaching? What does that look like?
Jenni
Yeah, so the two programs I’m launching this fall, one is “Sustain,” and then one is a program called Build. And the idea is that most of us just kind of go flailing into starting a freelance business, and like, it works, but also then you hit three years in and you’re like, “I really need to change something.” So, the “Build” program is oriented to doing a lot of the stuff at the outset, so not just building a business and figuring out your services, but also figuring out how to build a life adjacent to your work and having those things be married together. So, it’s a four-week program, it’s one-on-one coaching. I find there’s a lot of benefit in setting yourself up for these things right away. And a lot of us didn’t have that ability, but because so many people are getting laid off and getting requests for this all the time, it’s really important to me that it’s not just business 101, it’s also mindful awareness of what you care about and building something that will last. So, that’s happening.
I do a lot of business audits with people as well throughout, and often those are annual. And I think that’s a really good moment to get somebody else’s subjective brain in the picture because working alone is really hard, and you get a little bit tunnel-y, and so having someone else just look at your business structure once a year and talk with you about what you want and need is wonderful, worth every penny. I do a lot of that annually with people.
And then I do have a small subset of people who have hit the 5-6 year mark, who are scaling up into agencies or adjusting their business models in a variety of ways to build passive revenue streams, you know, kind of do things that are more… I would call it scaling. And so, that is a point that people usually hit that’s a little variable, somewhere between 5 and 10 years, where they just kind of actually want a different career, frankly. They want the size and shape to be different. And that is also where you need a lot of coaching because that level-up is big in terms of money and hiring help. I’m actually in the midst of doing that in my business, and so I’ve been doing a ton of coaching because you need someone else to help you feel grounded as you’re making partner like a thought partner to sort of help you figure out how to jump over that little liminal space.
Samantha
I love that so much because you can get so in the weeds of your own business, right? It’s so hard to take a step back, even when you’re making the time to reflect, right? Even when you’re, you know, going up into your attic space and bringing your colored pencils and being really thoughtful about assessing your business, it can be really hard to do that on your own and think bigger without having someone there to challenge you and ask the right questions. So, I think that’s great. I think the annual review would be really beneficial.
Jenni
Yeah, I mean, you get that in a full-time job, right? You get a point to reflect and say, “I grew these skills, and I’m proud of this, and this thing was hard, and this is what I want to do next year.” And so, that is kind of what this is. You know, I think that’s the hardest part about freelancing is the lack of structure in terms of advancement, and so that is the role I play for a lot of people, right? Like, you don’t have a manager anymore. I’ve worked as a manager in full-time jobs. I was always running teams. If there’s a similarity there in terms of the reflective sort of like somebody else who’s not in your brain, the thing that just is so… It’s so good. It’s so important. That’s why I love doing this too, watching people’s businesses jump is really fun, frankly.
Samantha
I love that. When you start talking about mindfulness and reflecting on your business and doing these assessments, it can feel really overwhelming. And so, if you had to, you know, talk to everyone here and just give them advice on just like, what is the simplest way to start dipping your toe into being more thoughtful with your business.
Jenni
That’s a great question. The simplest way is to pause in the middle of the day and notice how your body feels. Like, close your eyes for five seconds because our brains have about 20% of the information, and our bodies have about 80%. And so, oftentimes, even if mentally you’re not noticing because there’s an inertia that’s happening and you’re just going, your brain is not really tuned into that, your body will have some sort of tell if things don’t feel very good. For a lot of us, it’s like, “I will keep my shoulders here and it will protect me,” or like, you’re not super breathing, your stomach feels a little weird. So, that is like a very basic way to just start noticing what’s happening. And that’s my question, it’s really, “What’s happening right now?” That’s the small version of the big question. And then, yeah, like you get into sitting down for 45 minutes and asking, “What’s working? What’s not working? What do I love? What do I hate? What am I dreading?” Some of those questions, but really, what’s happening?
Samantha
I love that. I think I have those moments often where I’m like, “Oh my God, why do I feel like if I don’t stretch right now, my body is going to absolutely snap?” Oh, it’s because I’ve been sitting in this stressed pose for so long because I can’t actually solve this problem right now, so I need to play.
Jenni
Yeah, but there’s inertia that makes that actually quite difficult so it’s like this training thing that we have to train ourselves to do to take a second.
Samantha
I know we’re getting to we’re about 35 minutes in so we’re gonna we’re getting kind of to the end of this, but anybody else here have any questions for Jenny? I know we’ve dug into a lot, but any questions, nothing’s too big or too small.
Tess
I’m wondering if you have any tips for remaining mindful when one is stuck in a project that perhaps five or four months ago when we signed the contract was serving our needs then and there, but right now really isn’t, and we have to see it through, but for God’s sake, I don’t want to. I can’t. This isn’t serving me right now. Like, how do you deal with a situation like that?
Jenni
Yeah, it sucks. I’ve been there. Everybody I know has been there. The frustration is real. So, in a coaching session, I would ask you a few questions. Like, one is interrogating that idea of, do you have to stay? And what makes you think that? What is the evidence to suggest that you have to stay? What is the evidence to suggest that you don’t have to stay? And we work with that a little to make sure that you do have to stay stuck in it. If the answer is yes, then it’s a question of, like, how are you gonna feel good about the rest of the time there? What boundaries do you need to set so you can get your needs met during that final month or whatever it is?
Sometimes I work with clients who realize that the tax of staying for that extra month is actually not worth it because it has such a drag factor in your business. So, you get another freelancer, and they step in for you, and you leave, and you risk making someone upset. That is option number one. But I do think there’s this question of, like, okay, so what do I need to get through the next month or however long it is? Sometimes the answer is distraction. I was pregnant and horribly sick, and finally, my therapist said to me, “You know what, Jenny? There’s a lot of value in just distraction.” I think we’re taught that distraction is like running away from the sensation, sometimes yes, but sometimes also it’s necessary if something is really bad. And then, I always want you to have something in the mix that does feel good. So, it’s not just like you’re not just tunnel-visioned on this tough thing, that there is. It feels like there’s a future because when we’re in survival mode, it’s hard to see the future.
So, we talk a lot about what’s coming and how can you start to move towards that right now so you feel like there’s momentum for the exit. That’s what I would say. It’s a… Someone told me the other day too, this type of thing widens your window of tolerance. While it’s uncomfortable, it does mean that you’re gonna be able to tolerate a lot more in the future, and that is really a silver lining, for better or for worse. So, I don’t know if that answers your question quite. I mean, it’s just solidarity because it sucks, but there are mental things I think that you can do to sort of work through. Like, where do you have control here is basically what I’m asking you, right? Where do you have agency, and what could you do about it?
Tess
Yeah, I feel like I’ve been so conditioned to just tough it out, you know, from being an athlete or just a hard worker in school. That’s just the mode i enter in so even when the project or thing that isn’t serving me is over, I’m just crushed by it.
Jenni
If your body and brain are used to the suffering mentality, that is a slow process of unlearning. But, you don’t have to suffer – what a weird concept! Quitting can be incredible. I work with a lot of people who have fired clients or left things and it is the absolute best thing they could’ve done for themselves. But, someone is also still mad at them because they left. And that’s hard to tolerate but it released them from a structure in their business that was locking them in. If you did leave, what would that look like, feel like, or so on? Reflect on that.
Samantha
I remember the first time Andrea and I had to break up with a client. It was daunting and a really big project. It was people that we really liked but we were not aligned on the direction and there was a lack of focus there was a lack of feedback that was being given to us like we just got really really off track and we could not do the project. At this time, we actually didn’t have a termination clause in our contract which that’s another mishap that we learned from that we include. But I remember how hard it was you know. Andrea and I really agonized over it, right? We had lots of phone calls with one another being like how are we gonna do this, what are we going to say, how do we maintain these relationships, but at the end of it we’re like we’re going to actually lose these relationships if we keep pushing forward with this project and charging them and nobody’s happy with the outcome. The only way to actually maintain these connections and make this work for everyone is to recover this relationship.
Jenni
Tess, I’m thinking about I fired a client a few months ago and I literally walked outside afterward and threw up. I’m not saying that this is pleasant, right? It’s tremendously difficult and you can still do it. It was a misalignment, it’s like what Sam said, I love the person but the project was absolutely wrong for me and it would have taken so much for me that it was not worth it. It would have taken time with my kids and it would have meant I couldn’t make more money. It was all the things and these things are just so difficult and you actually can handle them when you have a tool kit available to you and a support system that helps you manage your anxiety that helps you rethink. This is like coaching and therapy and all the things, right? You don’t just want to cut ties and then flounder around alone you need people around you, but it’s also liberating as much as it is miserable. Yeah, Sam, I feel that deeply like you have to leave to maintain the relationship. Andrea, did you have one more question?
Andrea
I did because you touched on this a little bit in your interview and just any like schools and apps and small little things that you use to help remind you and bring you back to mindfulness in your day?
Jenni
Yeah, great question. There are a few podcasts I love and one’s called Pulling the Thread, that’s very philosophical and kind of reminds me of big themes insight timer has been really great for me and a lot of my clients it’s a free app that has all kinds of meditation breath work Yoga Nidra is something I do a lot I mentioned it like helps me go to sleep because my brain likes to ruminate on work questions and so Yoga Nidra is a technique that is like very much brings you back into your body I fall asleep in the middle which is wild for someone who usually takes an hour for me to fall asleep uh so those are two key ones. There are a lot of books I love things like that but I think insight timer would be the one I would offer to people and then pulling the thread is like a good perspective giving thing. And, honestly, being in community with other people who are talking about this sort of style of business and work on social media wherever you find your community I think is something that has been so important to me uh it’s this again is like pretty counter to what a lot of those pros are talking about and so you need to be surrounded by people who can support uh the idea that you might fire a client right or something like that. You need a support system and that to me is actually like a mindfulness tool that is so important you need people to bring you back down and back into your space with people who love you and are cheering for you.
Andrea
Awesome! This was such a wonderful way to spend 45 minutes thank you so much for your time Jenny and before we take off do you want to tell everybody where they can find you and to reach out if they have any questions or want to learn more about your coaching services?
Jenni
Totally! I’ll drop my email or my website in here and my newsletter I think those are the two best places although I’m across all social media at Jenni Gritters. But my website has a list of some of those coaching offerings those are opening up in the fall so you can just join my waitlist and you would get information about that, and in my newsletter, I talk about this every week. It’s free so pop in there there’s always reflective questions it’s like one of my favorite things I’m doing right now it’s such a creative like generative space for me so I love to be having those discussions in those places what does it look like join a business like this why is it hard like Tess I just wrote one about firing a client so you can go in there read it but yeah I would love have you all hanging out there and then I’m on Twitter and Instagram and the places.
Andrea
we’ll include all of this stuff in our follow-up email and if you guys have any questions for Harlow or Samantha, myself, or Madi, feel free to reach out directly. We’re on all social channels. If you have any input on these office hours sessions, please don’t hesitate to reach out and give us that feedback thanks so much.
