Episode #14: How to Use Self-Care Strategies to Fuel Your Business Success with Laura Albers

Intro (00:02): Welcome to The Fast-Track Entrepreneur podcast with your host Terra Bohlmann. You are about to get filled with business strategies, advice, and motivation to get you prepared to fast track your five year plan in less than one year. So buckle up and let's create your first class business with clarity and confidence.

Laura (00:27): All right, welcome back to this episode of The Fast-Track Entrepreneur. And I am so excited to introduce you to my guest for today because what I've learned and working with so many women entrepreneurs that want to go faster is sometimes you need to slow down and you slow down and then you have more momentum to actually make bigger things happen and make a bigger impact in the world. So let me introduce you to my guest today. Her name is Laura Albers and she is a mental health therapist, master certified wellness coach and the owner of Albers mind and body wellness. She is passionate about helping female entrepreneurs clear their emotional clutter and help them with their self care, but in a way that doesn't add more to your never ending to do list. Through her signature coaching and counseling programs, Laura's clients have transformed their lives from over committed and overwhelmed to feeling refueled by their new found presence, focus and impact that they have in their business relationships and with their health.

Laura (01:33): Essentially she helps put you back into your life. So please join me in welcoming Laura, how are you doing today, Laura?

Laura (01:42): Doing great Terra. Thanks so much for having me on here.

Laura (01:45): I'm so happy to have you. And I was so excited and I just, I still find such joy and the fact that we met at a live event in California and we just had lunch together and I just, after talking to I was like, Oh my gosh, you need to like, I need you to speak to women entrepreneurs. They need to know this stuff that you know, and we had an instant connection, so thank you for being on the podcast and I can't wait to dig in. So tell us a little bit about you, like how did you get into the space and this niche and where are you calling from? Like where are, you know, I want to know a little bit about you.

Laura (02:22): Yeah. So I am from St Louis, Missouri and we have, I think that a little bit in common, a common Midwest connection there. How I got into this, this, it's kind of interesting. It's kind of two things sort of set this in motion for me. One is to kind of back up a little bit. I'm a mental health therapist and I'm specifically trained in trauma work. And so when I would work with women primarily with trauma, I would find that they would be, you know, I'd be doing this really intensive trauma work, but yet they were so bogged down by just day to day stresses. They weren't sleeping, you know, they weren't taking care of themselves, all, all of these of things. And so to really try to do this really intensive emotionally draining work, it just, it was too much. Yeah. I felt like there was something missing.

Laura (03:08): But I, at the time I didn't quite know what it was. So then fast forward a little bit, a few years after that, I was working at this agency as a, as a therapist and I was really good at my job. And so, you know what happens when you're good at your job, you get more work and you get more stressed. And so, I mean, it was a wonderful opportunity, but the chronic stress really started to take a toll. And I started experiencing health issues and health symptoms and all of this stuff. And then I started getting really weird symptoms and eventually, I mean, it was not right away because I went to several different doctors, no one could figure out what was going on.

Laura (03:47): Eventually I was diagnosed with three autoimmune disorders and later on actually diagnosed with non Hodgkin's lymphoma on the roof of my mouth and I'm happy to say I'm three and a half years, you know, in remission, cancer free. So yes, absolutely. But it was this chronic stress that, you know, really created or set the stage for all of this. And so I began my own health journey and got into wellness coaching and functional medicine and all of these things. And so through that I kind of realized, I finally figured out what this missing piece was that that my women, when I was working with trauma, really needed and it's self care, that missing piece. And so I think through my own journey myself and then kind of seeing what was missing with them, you know, just really running with that of like it's self care. And so now that's really my bread and butter and my mission in life. Now I just don't want another person, especially women because that's what I work with to go through what I went through. It just doesn't have to get to that point.

Terra (04:47): Oh I hear you. And thank you for sharing that and your story. And you know, and I find we have so much in common. Like I mean same thing and it's so many women have our same story where, you know, we're high achievers, we do really a great job. I was a corporate consultant for many years. And you know, the harder you work, the more you're rewarded with more work. And it just comes to that point where you have that, that tipping point where it's like, ah, something's gotta give highly stressed, you know, tons of women out there on, you know, antianxiety medication and trying to hold it all together. Especially for, you know, our, I won't say our demographic, but for our, you know, gen X baby boomers, like it's just, it's a lot. So thank you for doing the work. And I'm a big believer that it's no accident on why we, you know, it's almost like perfectly curated of why we go through what we go through so that it helps us define our purpose and gives you that fuel so you can go help make sure that no other woman has to end up the way that you did.

Terra (05:49): Right. So there's a such, you know, to me like you've been there, you've, I always say, you know, like you want a business coach that's, it's actually been sweat, you know, that swim through the mud so that they understand how you're feeling and that was exactly you. So we have that in common as well as I have autoimmune things as well, so I'm going to get so much good insight for things. I have vitiligo, I have you know, I'm hypo thyroid, like you know, all that kind of how she made him, was it Hashimoto's? Yeah. Like I mean it's just, it's too normal and that's just unfortunate. So one woman at a time, you can make a huge difference and thank you for that. So you know, knowing what you know now, like you know, and especially with the women you work with, why do you feel that self care is always put on the back burner for women? Like why, why is it so challenging for us?

Laura (06:43): Yeah, that's such a great question. I think in part it's because our society really sort of values overvalues this idea of like do, do, do produce, produce, produce. And so there's just pressure to always be busy. And if you think about it, like a lot of times if you ask somebody like how are you doing? Often the answer is busy. Like what is that? You know, I'm good but busy and it's almost warrants like a badge of honor or there's like most martyrdom. So I think that's a big piece. It's just the societal kind of still this viewpoint on, you know, always being busy and always producing. Yeah, that's definitely one thing. I think also, you know, for women especially, I think we're kind of also sort of raised with this idea that we need to take care of others. You know, we're often nurtures kind of innately.

Laura (07:31): And so I think there is this sort of innate need or belief that we need to sort of take care of everyone first. And then if there's time, which let's be real, there's usually not, then I might consider myself. So I, you know, I think that's a big part. I also think that we're often in, in today's age, often way over-scheduled way over committed. You know, we, we sometimes struggle with saying no to things, you know, we give that reflex of yes. And so before we know it, we're often way too over over-scheduled and overstressed.

Terra (08:03): That is so true. And there's so much goodness in all of those points that you just said. Like, you know, I look back, I started my business coaching practice 10 years ago. I can't even believe it's been that long. And I used to wear busy like a badge of honor as well. Like I'm so busy and it's a lot of the times I was busy doing the nonproductive tasks that would actually stop me from you know, people knowing I'm a business coach that could help them. So it was like I was so busy, busy, busy, and I even had this, like, I'll never forget, even in one of the first photo shoots I did like, you know, branded photo shoot where you bring your own props and the photographer takes everything. I had something that said I'm too busy. It was like a little pencil pouch and I just thought it was the cutest thing when I found it.

Terra (08:45): And you know, you go through and you do your yourself carry your personal development over the years and whatnot. And it's like, I found that thing maybe about a year ago and picked it up and I just was like, I want to throw it away. Like, it just, it made me sick. It was like I ended up donating it, but like I shouldn't have donated it. I should've burned it. But I, to me it was one of those things that's like by saying I'm too busy now. I feel like if I hear that from people, especially a friend or a colleague or, you know, whatever I hear, I'm too busy. Like I hear you're not a priority in my life, you know, and yeah. And now I'm just like, you know what, I'm not too busy for the high priority things that need to get done.

Terra (09:26): Do I go through ebbs and flows where I'm busy and then I'm like, Ooh, okay, relax. Like, go do some things for yourself or like how about not schedule your day, you know, back to back to back. So you know, it, it's a constant challenge and everything you said I was like, yup, yup, yup. And well we, I still struggle with it a little bit and full transparency. Yeah, at least the awareness of it makes me like, okay, I'm going down this path because it's super comfortable because I was one that when I grew up it was Terra don't focus too much on yourself. Like even as a cheerleader it was like this isn't about you. It's not about you. Like you're being selfish, like you make it about everyone else. And because of that, you know, that showed up in my business, you know, like years later.

Terra (10:16): Right. So there's so much to me like self care, you know, is a, is a big buzzword and maybe it's not even a buzzword. It's not like it's trendy. It's probably the reality of, you know, what needs to happen going forward. But I started here, I started hearing self care, self care about five years ago. Like to be doing more of it. So you know how like you want to get that red car, you start seeing a red car everywhere. So it was like you probably as a therapist with all your schooling, it was probably like self care. What I wanted was part of like you know your first college course, but you know for someone who had no clue that it even existed, it was like, you know, I've seen it everywhere in five years, the last five years. But a lot of insight, there's people teaching about it, there's quotes on it, there's whatever. What do you feel that is missing from what people are really teaching about it, but yet you know, maybe something that your clients actually get results in that other people aren't teaching. Like what's the secret sauce?

Laura (11:18): Oh I love this question because this actually I wanted to touch on to kind of the selfish part of it as well because so first of all, I think most self care programs out there really focus on adding more. And even if it's something positive, like exercise, meditation, journaling, like we know those things are great for us, right? I am absolutely not knocking those whatsoever. But you know, both of us know as we work with, you know, these high achieving female entrepreneurs. You know, and this applies obviously to pretty much all of us anyway, but it's like when we're already so overwhelmed and exhausted and over-scheduled to add anything more, even when it's positive, it feels like yet another thing I should be doing, but, or I can't or I, you know, and so it feels like yet another way of that we might feel inadequate or like a failure or whatever.

Laura (12:13): So it's this added pressure. And so really my focus is let's work on clearing your plate first. Let's work on clearing the mental and emotional baggage, kind of that's keeping you stuck in your head and keeping you from showing up confidently and focused in your business or from having the health that you want or from having the greater joy and connection and relationships. And I think when it, when we talk about like the selfish part of it, because unfortunately I do think that's also why it kind of gets a bad rap is like, it's selfish to take care of yourself, but if you're really focused on how can I clear the things that are keeping me stuck in my head so that I can show up more fully and present in my relationships. Like what is selfish about that?

Terra (12:57): No, that's sounds beautiful. It's, I mean that's kind of like the ultimate side of the gold, you know, on the rainbow. Like, it's, that's what we all want. And then it's like, you know, we find ourselves, you know, for me it's like, okay, playing, you know, like sure kids all like we can go to the park, but I'm like thinking about work or you know, it's like if I'm not intentional around shutting it down and putting boundaries around my week and my, you know, saving my thing is like safe weekends for family and friends and I'm done working at six and you know, Monday through Friday. And it's like, if I wasn't super hyper focused on that, like I would go bananas. Like there's just too many. I see women entrepreneurs that are working seven days a week and wearing it like the badge of honor and it's not going to get us to anywhere.

Terra (13:45): You're going to burn out. And that's so sad. So what you were saying was, so in alignment with what I see happening with women entrepreneurs is a lot of the times, and it's so sad how many women entrepreneurs are not paying themselves and their business. Like they're not drawing a salary. So then when they're overwhelmed, they're like, I need help in my business. I shouldn't be doing this silly stuff. I should have an assistant, I should have a whoever to help me, but I can't afford it. Right? And so it becomes this vicious cycle and it's like, well I'm not even paying myself. How can I go pay someone else and whatever. So it's like, again, I think paying yourself is just as important as an in alignment with that self care. Put yourself first, pay yourself, you know, get to some stability and then, you know, put aside some money to go get an assistant or you know, an intern or something you can do. Very affordable to get some stuff off your plate. Right.

Laura (14:45): Well and I love that too because another thing that you bring up by saying that is that often we do focus really one form of self care, which is physical self care and we're not. So I think of that of what you just said is really financial self care, you know. And so it's like there's all these other forms of self care, you know, and as professional self care, social self care, spiritual self care, financial self care. It just said emotional, physical, you know, there's lots of different buckets if you will, of self care. And I think often we tend to only focus on one or maybe two, but, but really the sweet spot is where am I at? And kind of all of these buckets and what's feeling a little depleted and identify not and kind of what, where can I take a small baby step? Or where can I address this a little bit? You know, so that I don't feel so depleted in this one area. And I think that's a great example of a financial.

Terra (15:36): So speaking of that, so thinking of your plate, right? Like I'm, I'm thinking when you keep talking like we have too much on our plate. If you're looking at a typical woman, high achieving, you know, woman entrepreneur, right? Like that tends to be who I've worked with. Sounds like who you work with. I'm a high achiever, you're a high achiever. We tend to attract who we are. It's like if you look at a typical high achieving woman's entrepreneurs plate, what does that look like now and what do you want it to look like?

Laura (16:03): That's a great question. I think it's so heavily focused on task. Okay. You know, I mean we do wear a lot of hats, you know, with especially as female entrepreneurs and so I don't think we're necessarily going to get away from that per se. But like you were saying while ago, can we delegate? Can we hire a VA, can we, you know, get the supports that we need so that we're not always focused on tasks. What I find so often with my clients is they literally do not know how to relax. Like it actively gets uncomfortable.

Terra (16:36): Yeah. Yeah. I'm raising my hand because every time I get like get a monthly massage, right? Let's make one of my self cares that I try to do for myself. And every time, I mean it takes me, my big tree is when I do a 90 minute massage cause it takes me if the massage is 50 minutes, takes me 45 minutes to relax and then this is always like you need to relax. So I don't know how.

Laura (17:07): You really struggle with relaxing cause we're so focused on what we can produce more and more and more done and that high almost of checking things off the list, you know? And so it really is at the detriment of our own health, our own stress levels, our relationships. And so it's really learning. And I would say start small. Like if the idea of, you know, even sitting down to watch, let's say half an hour show kind of gives you the heebie-jeebies or whatever because you need to also be on your phone and you need to be doing all these other things like start small. It's like kind of like meditation start small. I would never tell somebody you've never meditated before. Just start with like half an hour, an hour.

Laura (17:49): Like that's going to feel probably pretty awful. And like long time, right? Often build up to that. So relaxation honestly works the same way cause it's a skill. Okay. So it's a skill to be able to actually relax and quiet your mind and actually be present and be mindful and not be thinking constantly about, Oh I gotta get this done and this and this done. Or Oh this great idea just popped into my head. Like it works the same way as really as meditation because you're training your brain to be in the present moment and it gets us.

Terra (18:23): I mean I've got a funny story about that as well as like I'm in a high end mastermind with, you know, people who way more successful than me. And one thing we had to do is like take a look. We had a tracker time, I think it was three days.

Laura (18:36): You know, it was a method called, it's a great book. If you haven't read it, it's called clockwork. And we had to clockwork in our business. So the first step is you have to track your stuff for track what you're doing pretty much every hour for three days, which in itself sounds like, Oh, we'll be like that. That's hard. I mean I struggled to even find the three days to track my stuff. And so I did the work. And then you have to categorize was this task a, you know, something that I was doing, is it something I was delegating? And sometimes for us, a lot of the time, like it's stressful delegating because we're then in the monkey in the middle and we're in between, you know, the podcast editor and the graphic designer and you know, and we're just adding more to our plate instead of saying, Hey, why don't y'all just talk to each other, right?

Terra (19:22): Because we have these control issues. So I found myself like I was very heavily in the doing, like doing all the work for my clients producing and I really didn't have much time even to strategize in my own business. And I had, there's one category called design or designing time. And I remember on the mastermind I showed him my thing and I go, you know, that's great, terrible. You're supposed to have like 10% time is supposed to be designing time. Where's your design time? I go, I don't even know what that means. What does that mean? That just means going for a walk and thinking about where you know some new ideas and where you want your business to go and how, and I was like, that's like a thing you should be doing in your business. Like I was so clueless and so now I can relate to everything you're saying is like, Oh this is stuff I can do that really helps move the business forward. But it's also like, you know, self care, like my best ideas come in the shower, right? It's like, okay, like I just need to do that. I need to do this stuff more. So this is so good. I think every woman needs to hear everything you're saying. That's so good. I love the time-tracking cause that and priority management are the two first steps that I use or do with pretty much every client. Because I think those are crucial first steps because I don't know, like you're saying, we don't know where our time goes.

Laura (20:48): You know? I mean, how many, I'm sure people relate to. How many times have you ever gotten on Facebook or Instagram for a minute and then 20 minutes or an hour or whatever hours go by. We truly often don't even know first of all, where our time goes. Right? And you've got to start there, as I'm sure you've experienced by doing that experiment is there, because if you really don't know where your time goes, would truly be done, right? How are you going to make tweaks or how are you going to improve things or, or really, you know, schedule in that time for things that really do matter and that really do move the dial forward.

Terra (21:24): Right. And so, I mean, would you recommend, like for someone who, like we said, like, you know, for me, if I, my step one, if I feel overwhelmed, I just make a checklist. Like I gotta get it out of my brain and I make a list and then I do find complete joy. And crossing it out. And sometimes I even write like if I did something that wasn't on the list, I'm going to write it, then check it off. Cause it makes me feel good. It's my thing to go look how efficient I was today, which is insane. But it makes me feel less guilty that Oh yeah, see there's the monkey brain that like went and did this other thing. But you know, is the, so I have, you know, I keep to a schedule, right? It's like I even, I had a call scheduled with a friend of mine today and it was like 10 it was suppose to be at 10 and you know, by 10 10 I'm like, Hey, are we still talking?

Terra (22:16): She's like, Oh my gosh. Like I didn't, I thought we were just talking. I didn't know we had it scheduled. Sorry about that. And I'm like, well back. I'm back to back. Right. can we talk Monday? And we, you know, had to, I said, and I told her, I said, I only do what my Google calendar tells me when it comes to work. So is it too much? If we take some of the self care things like I'm not, I want to start doing pilates and for the women who think you know, I'm going to add yoga or maybe I just want to take an hour and just block that time and go walk around my pond and think like, is it okay to put it in our calendar?

Laura (22:50): It is absolutely more than just, okay. That is definitely a strategy that I would use for sure. Like I can highly recommend that enough. In fact, one of the things that I also work with my clients on, I call it set up Sunday. I'm a big fan of alliteration. I love it. So this doesn't have to be Sunday, but that just typically is kind of the end of the week right before the start of the week for most people. And so it's that time that you set aside. You know, I do batch cooking for the week, so I'm not having to cook every night. But one of the other big things that I do is really looking at my schedule ahead and I was tell people like obviously look at, you know, work stuff like meetings or client sessions or whatever it is that you have reports, projects, that kind of stuff and schedule that in.

Laura (23:31): But don't forget about the self care, right? That is just as important if not more because it's kind of like the airplane analogy of like putting your own mask on before you can help someone else. If you're not taking time for stress relief or time to plan or time to reflect, you're going to end up being very, you know, closer to burnout or burnt out or reactive. And I think for me personally, I was, had been so reactive in my business versus so long as we started this call. I think it was before we started recording, so listeners probably didn't hear this, but we were talking about, you know, scheduling or planning or 2020 but we really hadn't done that a whole lot before. This is kind of a new thing and that is huge. I mean already I've seen him as a game changer. And one of the things I did with that was plan every month I put in two full days just to plan.

Terra (24:20): Oh for every month, every month. That's a really good idea. Like versus I did it like two days for the whole year. But yeah, I'm gonna take your advice and I'm going to do, I'll do that as well, like two days, two full days of just planning and refining the plan and I love that. And just kind of having that white space available and, and if you're are a plan and you're good to go, use that time to go do something for yourself. Right. And I do three masterminds a year with my mastermind program and I try to like, can I add a day at the beginning or the end? Cause we go to these really cool places just to process right and not feel so like flying in. I'm flying out because that's typically what I do. Cause you know, I have over-packed my schedule so I'm going to be super more intentional with that now going forward. So thank you.

Laura (25:14): And I like your term white space. I know that's often in the marketing and kind of copywriting world, but like I like that in terms of self care too. Like can I put in white space basically my calendar so that I'm not so back to back at least every day all day long.

Terra (25:30): I love that. And another thing I find myself all the time, like since I came from corporate, I try to keep like the same corporate schedule. So like I did finally give myself, I'm not a morning person, so like I usually don't people until 10 I like to slip my freedom means to me like I don't have to wake up to an alarm clock. So I start peopling at 10 and I work til six and Monday through Friday. And it took me a long time to feel less guilty that I wasn't getting up and on the computer ready to go. At eight I would felt like a loser and like lazy and whatever. But then I'm like, you know what, I work till six sometimes six 30 or whatever. I'm going to flip my hours a bit cause I'm not following a corporate regimen because he was going to fire me.

Terra (26:12): Right. So I'm like, and then my next step that I want to do is be able to take a midweek day off. It's like a mid, like a week. I try to do it with Wednesdays. Like I don't coach on Wednesdays. I tend to make any doctor's appointments or if I'm going to do massages on Wednesdays. Yeah. But when I can finally not, but what happens is this overflow starts overtaking and then my Wednesdays are not so personal care days or whatever. But that's like my ultimate dream because society tells us we have to work Monday through Friday, you know, or whatever industry. Yeah. My mom owned exactly like growing up. My mom owned a owns and my sister has owns it now, but like a barber shop. And so anything in the hair industry is always Tuesday through Saturday. And then my mom always had Mondays off, which was the days that we would always have like a home cooked meal.

Terra (27:09): You know, it was kind of her whatever day to go to the grocery store and do all the stuff that she had to do. And I'm like, I want that in my business because who says that a business coaching practice, you have to be Monday through Friday. Like I can take one day off.

Laura (27:24): And I think that's such great self care is to not only recognize like what are your own unique rhythms as far as when do you work fast energy, what do you want your schedule to look like? That's why we're all entrepreneurs too. Right? Love it. Love that control and that voice and that power to kind of choose for ourselves. And we don't have to, I mean it's, I think it's about releasing that guilt because all it is is that you're actually being more effective and efficient really with your time and your energy by choosing the times that really work fast and make the most sense for you.

Laura (27:59): Cause, I mean, I would imagine if you're saying like, I'm not really a morning person. I imagine that if you were trying to do something, especially something that took a lot of like mental energy and like seven or 8:00 AM like what's, you know, it's probably going to take so much longer and not be as good a quality of work and all of that. Like it, it just probably be kind of a big waste of time.

Terra (28:18): Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I think of like our society to, we're getting so philosophical, I love it, but like our society society today that really like elevate. It's like I love going to my, you know, get my Starbucks and whatever, but like how it's so like glorified to be like messy bun, getting stuff done, drinking are, you know, coffee, coffee, fuel me, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee and wine at night.

Terra (28:43): You know. And that was me too. Like I think my thing was, you know, start my day with coffee and end it with wine. Like, and that was just what I did to survive. And I just see like a shift and especially, you know, with women like you and, and helping other women to understand that it shouldn't have to be this way and it, and it really, you know, shouldn't be instead like you're creating your own plate like and different things on it and it doesn't have to fell off the side. And I just pictured like the mashed potatoes and gravy like dripping over and that's, that's how we're all running our lives unfortunately. So a lot of us are smart people aren't. Yeah, I know. And I want to say too, I think cause the guilt comes up a lot, so I think it's also, but if that wine is on the plate that's okay too. Or like coffee went to Starbucks or whatever is on the plate, that's okay too. I mean we don't want it in the way that kind of you're saying of like, you know, it sometimes can feel for many of us

Laura (29:42): Like I have to have that or like you were saying, it's kind of glorified sort of by society. I mean obviously don't ideally want that. Yeah. It's also okay. Those times that we do just want to unplug for a bit and like do something that's absolutely not productive. Like, yeah, like that's not being lazy or that they're doing. That's because another thing I hear is like, Oh well I don't like doing nothing. Right. That's not what relaxation is. Right. You know, it's not doing nothing. You're actually doing a lot by resting and relaxing. You're rejuvenating your mind. So

Terra (30:18): I love it. I mean, one thing I do a lot, like I do a lot of live events and so when I do a live event, I bring it with like everything I have from an energy standpoint. And then I, the next day I have to like lay in bed and lounge pants and read my Kendall and I now know that about myself. So I'm like, I can't just go from a live event to go to like a friend's birthday party and be social. I'm going to do they call ambivert or like sometimes I'm an extrovert, sometimes I'm an introvert. Depends on the day. Which makes it even harder to manage. Yeah,

Laura (30:52): I like that because we have introvert and extrovert qualities. Most of us totally honoring what that is and building in, going back to kind of what earlier, like building in that white space, doing it. So that's great. Self care.

Terra (31:04): I love it. And it's just like understanding your body and listening to it. So let's see. So good. So good. The one thing I I see all the time, so the women in my mastermind and in my business coaching programs and whatnot, I am huge on accountability. It's one of my core values. It's just be accountable. Do what you say you're going to do. It doesn't always have to be perfect. But even, you talked earlier about the little baby steps. My whole life has been about taking little baby steps, but being consistent and then they come to the big thing, right? And then I breathe and I recalibrate and I throw an anchor down and then I go again with the little baby steps. Right? So when I was in project management, they called it working in sprints. So you work really hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel for you, the celebrate, relax, and then you're go and do it again.

Terra (31:49): Right? So and so I see that happening all the time. And one thing, you know, so accountability for me is huge. Like so much. So I have an accountability coach that works on my team, that reaches out to my clients. Sometimes it's every day like Monday through Friday, it's a few minute phone call. Like, I care about your success. What's on the agenda this week? How does this roll up to what we set for our quarterly goals? Are those roll up to the annual goals and those roll up to your five year plan, right? So it's intense, but accountability works. And so I look at that and so what I do is I say, okay, you need to have your three business goals right for the quarter. Say, what are the three big things that are going to help you get exposure in your business?

Terra (32:36): What are you going to do to market to let people know that you're there? And then what's your sales goals? Typically those are the three business goals. And then I throw in, what's your a personal goal or self care goal or something that's important. And my overachievers always pick something crazy, like I'm going to work out five days a week or every day or you know, they, they picked cause they're shooting for the sky. And then when the accountability coaches are working with them, it's like, well I didn't do that. I know I supposed to meditate for 30 minutes today. I didn't get. And then her job is, okay, well can we do five minutes before you go to bed tonight? And you know, maybe somewhere I'll get back on track or do we want to roll down from, instead of 30 minutes, can you commit to 15 you know, so, cause to me it's about the baby steps. Right. And and so that's what she works with them on. But what, I mean, what do you think it is that, you know, women entrepreneurs, whether they put these big audacious goals out there around self care, but then they fall off and they're not consistent. Like what's happening in the brain on that?

Laura (33:38): Oh, well first I'd love to share a strategy around that, but also kind of this is, it's often kind of almost self sabotaging. So I think one of the things is that we often, it almost starts with the goal setting to begin with. So it's kind of what you're saying, which is like often the goals aren't realistic or they're too vague, you know, often also we'll see like, Oh I want to be healthy. What does that mean? Right. You know, like, okay, so tell me more. You know, and so we want to hit into a smart goal. You've probably heard of.

Terra (34:09): Oh yes, I do the smart thing.

Laura (34:12): So, well I think first is like really being like realistic, you know, with your goal and specific and time sensitive and all of that kind of stuff. So setting these goals that really kind of work for you. Other thing is sort of crafting your life. Then around those goals too, instead of, it's almost like with self care, it's kind of like what we often currently do now is like, Oh, well if there's time then I'll do X, Y, Z. Right. And we have to do the same thing with our goals, but really we should be using those goals to drive everything else. It goes back to kind of priority management. You know, if we're clear, we're focused on our top two to three, maybe four goals at the most, like it is much more doable to then, you know, craft your life more around those things.

Laura (34:55): And so I think two of the things that I do personally for me that I, and I talk with my clients about that I've really been game changers. The first thing is I do a motivated Monday morning meeting with myself and I've got this little worksheet that I made and it has the top three goals. I'm going to rock this week. And that's literally the language. I use the three goals I'm gonna rock this week and I, so I write them out and then each day it's called like my daily biz goals sheet. And like each day I go over like the top couple of things that I wanted to get done and then I'll have my plan for the next day. That's always on every day. That way I can cross it off, right?

Laura (35:35): But it helps me to be really set and focused for the week of like, what do I really need and want to get done to feel really good about this week that's really going to move the dial forward. And so when I start my week that way and I'm really clear and then every day I'm kind of ending and on that, like it just, it helps me to be so much more focused and it cuts down a lot on that sort of that busy time or that you know, the time-wasters that really don't move the dial forward. So that's one thing that I do and I do that every, every at the start of every week. The other thing that I think is really big is it's called a weekly accountability meeting. And if you're not familiar with the book or if your listeners aren't familiar, the book, the 12 week year by Brian Moran is fantastic.

Laura (36:21): And he talks about this concept of these weekly accountability meetings away. And so I do mine personally every Thursday at 2:00 AM with myself. Now if you had an accountability coach or you know a colleague or something like that, obviously you can include them in this as well. But it's really this time where you look at your top two to three goals and so for me, yeah I have, I do, similar to you, I have a moneymaking, a revenue goal building goal. Those are my two business goals. I just keep it at two because most everything falls into one of those two. And then I do my self care goal and when I do my self care goal, the baby steps do include all the diff, you know are lots of different types of self care. So I'm not just focused on exercise or I'm not just focused on meditating.

Laura (37:03): But anyway, so I take that time and it's usually like 10 to 15 minutes usually. So it's not even like it takes a really long time and I just write out the small baby steps I took that week for each goal. Then you give yourself an overall accountability score and that is not a time to get judgemental critical. Like I definitely want to say that it's time to kind of check in with yourself. And like I, for me, I mean it's a habit now, so I do it every week anyway, but like I would give myself at least a 50% if I just have the meeting with myself to begin with, you know, my next few intentions for the week ahead and I'll write them out. Okay. Something about writing it, having it in front of you, that really makes, you know, there's even research on that. It makes it much more likely that you will. And so I think just that act of having that accountability every week, it's nonnegotiable. It keeps you really focused on your goals and what truly matters.

Terra (37:57): I love that. There's so much goodness about that. Like, you know, if you can't, you know, swing an accountability coach, but what you're doing an amazing job at is self accountability, which is really rare. So like, but, and maybe it's rare because people don't know that that tool exists. I mean, I think that's something I'm going to add to. It was like an accountability check-in. Something I like the, is it 50% for showing up? What percent are you at today? One thing I'm obsessed with lately and my clients are seeing it and you know I'm doing talks and they're seeing it, but it's like the idea of doing a report card, like as a high achiever. I mean I would, you know, there's these enough's are not okay, but like, you know, doing an assessment, a self assessment to find out where are you now, you know, we all want a pluses, but like how did I do this week?

Laura (38:48): What was I a C student and myself care was I, you know, did I get a B on my list building as you said? And you know, and it's like, then it's like, okay, I need to get that up to an a and maybe it's because I'm surrounded by three school aged kids right now that are like, you know, with the grades and high achieving kids. But I think everyone can resonate to that report card. Like you know what, last week I got a B plus this week I'm going to be minus. You know, and it's not like you said not to beat yourself up, but use it as motivation to like do better and problem solve too. I would say yeah,

Laura (39:22): If it ended up being sort of a sea leak or something like that, that's okay. Some are just going to be like that, but then it's also looking at, okay, what do I need to do or how do I need to schedule or what do I need to let go of or delegate or whatever so that it can be more like closer to a, B or B. What more of what I imagined in my head like so is an opportunity to really problem solve and clear those obstacles that may be getting in your way.

Terra (39:48): And I can think, I can think too, like even journaling how you're feeling when you give yourself the C plus or whatever. Then you have that to compare to for the next week. Like man, I was an a minus two weeks ago. I felt good. What do I need to do to get back to that? And just using that as like a, as an anchor would be amazing. So, Oh my gosh, like all this is so good. I have two final questions for you. The first one that comes to mind that I think would everyone really benefit from is, you know, we have all this stuff falling off of our plate. Like what is the best advice that you have for someone right now that's like, I barely have time to listen to this podcast. Like, and I'm doing it while I'm working out at the gym, you know, or whatever. You know, what is the best advice you have to free up some time and some energy like immediately.

Laura (40:34): And you know, I go back to, because I don't think it's about time management. I think it's about priority management. So I know we kind of touched on this a bit, but like just to even be a little bit clear on that, it's like I would encourage you then when you're saying, I don't have time, you're saying I won't make the time. As you kind of said, we will talk a little bit about earlier and so it's just getting clear of like truly what are my priorities. I have my clients do a priority pack and so we'd go through and they write on an index card, like what are my highest highest priorities, values and goals and having circle like their top absolute top, you know, two to three max. And it's like think about things that are like basically as important as air to you last have them to survive or you know, to be fulfilled in your life.

Laura (41:22): And so really getting clear on those things and that's what you use to drive your schedule to drive your, to do lists like, because again, so often when we waste a lot of time or we don't know, as we talked about earlier, we don't know where our time goes. So I honestly, I would start with kind of the priority management or the priority packed, like getting really clear on your priorities and then doing a time tracker as you were talking about earlier, just start there just so you know where things actually are. You really need a baseline just to even get going. And then from there it makes it so much easier to know what to clear, what to delegate, what to automate, stop fuming.

Terra (42:00): I love that. And like it really becomes around to me, like I don't, don't get mad and beat yourself up, get data. And so to me it's no different because so many women entrepreneurs, they want to put their heads in the sand and blah blah blah. I'm not looking at my financials, you know, and it's like, dude, like whatever. And it's like instead it's like don't get mad. Go get data, hire a bookkeeper, have a monthly meeting with them. Like, you know what you track gets measured. So even for this, if you feel overwhelmed, you'll probably, when I filled mine out, I was like, Oh, apparently I think I'm, I'm super woman. Like this is insane. And then show it to somebody like you or show it to somebody and be like, are you crazy? You're going to burn yourself up. So then you know, start like you said, pulling back and, and cause one thing when you said do that thing that is as important as air for you to breathe.

Terra (42:52): My thing is like travel. If I found about myself, if I don't have a trip on the books, I literally can't breathe. Like I'm like, I feel so stuck and it's kinda, I guess the gypsy soul in me a little bit, but I have to have that trip to look forward to. So, but I also need to do that with personal caring goals and all that stuff as well. So this is good. How can people who want to learn more about you and your work, where can they go and do you have like a free resource that you can give them?

Laura (43:22): Yeah, yeah, I do. So I have a free seven day self care challenge. It's via email and it's basically just, you'll get an email a day that has a strategy or kind of a challenge just for that day. And it's like simple, implementable stuff that you can do right away. And I want to say the caveat because I know probably both of us and probably many of the listeners can relate. Like sometimes we beat ourselves up if we don't like do it in seven days, right? Or if we kind of forget right before, right. So I just want to say if the seven day self care challenge takes you a month, that's okay. Right? But it is on my website. So if you go to www.alberswellness.com you will find it right there kind of at the top of the page. So, and I also a lot of like very, again, very implementable self care tips and strategies and hacks and things like that. So once you get signed up for the self care challenge you'll see some of that stuff as well.

Terra (44:17): I love it. And just so it's all the links will be on the show notes on terrabohlmann.com just go to the podcast and you can get all these links in these books we've been talking about and all that kind of stuff. But you know, definitely check out Laura's website. It has amazing resources on it. It's Albers, A L B E R S wellness.com. So thank you for that. And the last fun question I have for you that I like to ask people is, you know, if I'm a big, like I love Hallmark's movies and I like lifetime and that's kind of what I do to like unwind on the weekends and I try not to get sucked into when they immediately start the next one know. But if hallmark or are maybe lifetime was doing a movie about your life, they were creating a biopic about you Laura, what actress would play you?

Laura (45:02): Oh, I thought about this question because I have listened to your podcast. You're like, I just bought it because I was like, Oh gosh. Well my instinct is I love Marilyn Monroe. Like I've always had a love for her, but I think nowadays more my, you know, self now I would say probably just the elbow, which might sound like a kind of a strange one. But I love that she's first of all multitalented. I mean, she's not an actress, but I actually like her probably almost more for her. She's this wellness company. Yeah. That company I think is a strong female entrepreneur. She focuses on health and wellness, which is obviously, you know, an area of, of extreme passion for myself. So, because I would have to say that I love it. I love the honest company I get on every now and again. I have to order my supplies.

Terra (45:49): So I love what it stands for. I can totally see that because it is about whole life and it's just an alignment with you. When I first met you, like, and you probably get all the time, I always like you look just like Tori Spelling, I'm not going to say that you weren't going to fall for it. Yes. So no, but, but it's, it's, it's so cute. So Jessica Alba, I can totally see that. So thank you so much for all this. Goodness. I mean, this has been amazing. This is a topic that needs to be talked about way more in the women entrepreneurial space, and I just appreciate the work you're doing and from what one Midwest girl to another.

Laura (46:27): Thank you for all the amazing work that you do as well.

Terra (46:33): Thank you. Thank you. Alright, we'll talk soon. Take care. Bye bye.

Outro (46:38): There you have it. Another episode packed full of strategies and motivation that you can use every day to put your business on the fast track. For a podcast recap and more resources, visit TerraBohlmann.com don't forget, subscribe to the podcast and get what you need to help fast track your five year business plan.