Service Based Business Society Podcast

Season 1
Episode 22
Title: Reframing Time and Banning Busy

Hello and welcome to the service based business society podcast. I'm your host, Tiffany-Ann Bottcher. At our weekly episodes. We will dig into everything you need to know about scaling your service based business without losing sleep. With my experience in creating over seven figures per month, and a passion for marketing, finance and automation, this show will provide tangible tips and techniques for scaling your business. Let's get started.
A very special guest, one whose experience and message really aligns with both me personally and on the business side. So I'm going to introduce you to Marisa Lonneke. She is a keynote speaker a life and business coach three times author, top rated podcast host and the founder of mama work it after spending nearly 15 years in corporate leadership positions Marissa shifted gears to becoming a full time momager and biz momager through her books, courses and coaching programs, she helps busy moms juggling mom life, work life, wife life fill in the blank life, her time management and Goal Achievement strategies have helped the most overwhelmed mamas turn their dreams into reality, even when they thought they had no time to make any of that happen. I think guys, you know, right away why this guest aligned so much for me, as a mom of three juggling mom life, wife life, work life, all the things together. It's tough. And whether you have children or you don't, you're still juggling life's responsibilities. And this episode truly comes from a place of talking about time management from the perspective of managing what's important to you. So whether you are a mama for Mama, a husband, ultimately, there are so many responsibilities to juggle and this episode really dives in. So let's get started.
Hi, Marissa. Thanks so much for joining.

Marissa:
Yeah, thanks for having me.

Tiffany:
So let's jump right in. And let's introduce you and kind of who you serve and where people are connecting with you.

Marissa:
Absolutely. So my name is Marissa Lonneke. I'm the founder of an organization called mama orchid. And we support women in the Jungle of mom life, work life, wife life, fill in the blank life. And you can find me at MAMA work at.com Ma Ma.

Tiffany:
I love it so much. The juggling the absolute the and not just the you know, as you pointed out the wife life and the rest of the just like,

Marissa:
fill in the blank life. Yeah, we all wear many hats.

Tiffany:
You have kids as well as

Marissa:
I do I have four

Tiffany:
What is the youngest, oldest, yet?

Marissa:
I have eight year old twins. And then a four and a half year old will say four and three quarters. And two and a half years old. Yeah,

Tiffany:
really similar to my kids' ages as well. My oldest is nine, and then seven and just turned three. So

Marissa:
nice. Yeah. Okay, so we're in a similar season here.

Tiffany:
Yes, a similar season. So I understand the juggling. So when you're talking to people about the kind of their life placement, you know, the season as you just mentioned, what kind of things are you looking at? Or what is that overarching message that you have for them?

Marissa:
Hmm, yeah, I mean, I think a common denominator I see no matter what season you're in, whether you're a parent or not a parent, whether you're an entrepreneur or an employee, is a lot of people tend to have this kind of love-hate relationship with time. And they see time as this really scarce thing in their life. Like how many times do you catch yourself saying I don't have time, right? I used to say this ad nauseam all the time. And what happens is when you say this out loud, and when you believe this, that there's never enough time, it becomes your truth. And you feel like you just never have time for things that are actually important to you that matter to you. That you wish you could do your goals, your dreams, your ambition, your God, I don't know, even just relaxation, or you know, doing something fun. And that's no way to live, in my opinion.

Tiffany:
I totally agree. I actually had this conversation not that long ago with my husband because people stopped inviting us to things. Because they were like, Oh, well, you're busy. You're so busy all the time. And I'm like, why do people think we're so busy? And sure we have a lot on the go but if you compare Life now to like a pre COVID When you like there was plans all the time. And now I'm like, I mean we don't the weekend evenings we should go for a barbecue or something we're not we're not that busy. But you know, people say how are you doing? And a lot of times it's oh yeah, like pretty busy. Things are good. And then people you know, it's it's framing it and and

Marissa:
Yeah, isn't that funny? How busy that answer is when you get that regular old question. How are you? It has become sort of a synonym for good or fine or like, okay, like people are just wearing it as a badge of honor. And it's mind blowing to me. But I also see it all day. And I was guilty of it myself, right. And it's kind of like, when you say those things, even just in response to small talk, look at the perception that's being put out there. Like now you're not even getting these invites to fun things because people think you're too busy. Meanwhile, you're just saying it almost like it's just rolling off your tongue like nothing.

Tiffany;
We have the conversations that we really need to have, like, no more word mention of the word busy. Right? When I was in my corporate job, our CEO, he did not like the word busy. It was like a banned word. He's like, his whole thing was busy and is not a unit of measure. And you're busy is different than by busy and because you get people who you know, it's like, well, how's the week i Oh, it's so busy. And it's like, okay, but let's break that down into something that's actually, you know, solvable in terms of like, we have a lot of volume of this task or this issue, or, you know, just busy if it's on its own didn't actually tell you anything.

Marissa:
Yeah, I think that goes hand in hand, too. When people feel overwhelmed. Because anybody can feel overwhelmed. Whether you're, you know, a parent of four or five kids juggling a career and you know, all these things, or you're like a dog, mom, single woman, you know, like, you can feel overwhelmed and that state to it doesn't matter. So it's really like I tell my clients to when you're, when you get into that state, brain, dump everything on a piece of paper, right, get it out of your head, because when it's floating in and out of, you know, that mental load, it even feels more overwhelming, just because it's not, it's not out of there, right? It's just, it's coming and going, it's like all disorganized to just throw it up, like on a piece of paper, literally word vomited on there. And then focus on three things, just circle or highlight three things and start from there. And especially in the strategic case of your business, you know, definitely those revenue streaming things should be where you start. We tend to procrastinate, those harder tasks are those places that are outside our comfort zone. And I think there's value in that. And sometimes there's no value in that, because we end up subconsciously stressing about those things, and taking up a ton of time and energy when we could have just blocked it in and gotten it done. Right.

Tiffany:
Yes, just before we were recording this, I was doing a strategy call with a client. And we were talking about all these different parts of her business. And I've got a lot of stuff to do. And I say, you know, all of these things are good. But not all of these things need to happen. Right? This Right,

Marissa:
Right? Yeah. Absolutely. You know, I think first and foremost before you can juggle successfully is you have to have clarity and how you want to spend your time like what you want to get done, what you want your day to look like how you want to feel, at the end of the day, all of that, if you don't have that clarity, what happens is you end up and we all do, no matter how busy we think we are, we get these free pockets of time throughout the day. And when we don't know how we want to spend it, we just fill it with garbage. We just do something mindless or like scrolling through social media. And there's nothing wrong with those things if we're doing them intentionally. But I think nine times out of 10, we're not being intentional with it, we're just doing it to sort of fill in the gap in the five minutes here or the 10 minutes there. Because we're not quite clear on what we actually want to do or want to get done or where we want to use that time. So honing in on that is super important, I would say is like a prerequisite first step of getting started.

Tiffany:
Yes, I think it also comes down to where you're most comfortable. So if you're in that overwhelming state, and you have a whole long list of tasks, you really pull to whatever is your comfort zone. And so you know, for those that you know, prefer the sales to the operation side, then they lean in on that, and then you know, the operation side becomes a little messier. But also in the reverse if sales isn't necessarily and that customer outreach and all of these different pieces isn't your natural, you know, strength or that's not what you enjoy, then you kind of default to I think I'm gonna come over here and work on some of these other things.

Marissa:
Absolutely, yeah, and let's just be clear, like there's nothing wrong with giving your brain a break with taking time to totally just numb out here and there. I think when you're using this, though medicinally too often. That's where you run into the issue, right? Because what happens is after like at the end of the day, or the end of the week, if you feel defeated, if you feel like the day ran you rather than you ran the day. Well that's where the problem lies. But if you were like no I actually just needed to zone out and laugh and watch these silly videos then cool good for you like you needed that you listened to what you needed and you did it.

Tiffany:
Yes. Isn't that the truth? Everything in moderation. All the things that are I'm a believer Yes. Yes, absolutely. So, you know, one of the things I struggled with this week in particular, a really challenging mom, business owner moment when I had said to the kids, hey, we have some time, let's get to the park. And they were so they were like, we can go to the park right now.

I was like, Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. And then I got an emergency client call that was like, Oh, my gosh, the world is ending. And I was like that, that moment of like, oh, no, and I hate to disappoint them. But there was a deadline and whatnot. And so my wonderful mom was like, no problem. And she took them off to the park. And really, they were fine. They were at the park playing and Simon, it all worked out. But for me, it was that moment of oh, no, that it hits me a little bit like a train of bricks as Oh, I just don't want to disappoint them. But I also don't want to disappoint. You know, the person who is paying and they are having this emergency. And that's my job. Do you have any advice in situations like that? Where it's, you're really backed into the corner, and you ultimately have to make a choice?

Marissa:
Yeah, I mean, that's a really tough call. And I think there's no right or wrong answer as to what you should choose. And that situation, and I think, really, it's case by case, right? Because sometimes to a client, it might feel like an emergency, but to you knowing, you know, kind of the crux of things, the ins and outs of things. It might not. And that's okay, right. Like, we all have different opinions, sort of like the busy connotation there. You know, so I would say, that's where you need to trust, intuitively, that what you're choosing is the right choice. And even if you end up in hindsight, looking back and being like, Well, damn, that actually wasn't an emergency, and I probably should have just gone to the park Well, lesson learned, you know, it's just opening up your, your thought process next time this happens that, like, you're going to ask a few preliminary questions, and then maybe decide based on that, or you're going to just always put, you know, the family first in that situation, once you've said, so, you know, so really, it just depends, I think, case by case and, and trusting that you're making the right decision, like you're exactly where you need to be.

And the mom's guilt is real, it comes up often. And I think, especially for moms and business, because we are so committed to our, like, our passion, right? are growing this business are succeeding in it. And you know, even more so than when you work for someone else. It's hard to separate those lines. And trust me, I have been so guilty of that sometimes where like, I've been my own worst boss, like just putting immense pressure on myself where I know, in my past corporate career, I wouldn't have treated myself that way. So you know, just really being able to be self aware and recognize, like, hey, like, No, I don't need to get that done today. It's fine, right? I know, I can do it tomorrow, or I can do it this weekend. Or I can do it. You know, another time when I'm not as exhausted. And I do want to prioritize what's important to me right now, which maybe is reading the kids at bedtime story or you know, picking them up from school or going to the park like you said,

Tiffany:
Yeah, mom guilt, the dreaded mom guilt. It is tough, you know, when you're trying to be really good at all things. Sheryl Sandberg: Did you read her book? Lean in? was really good. I read the chapter on you're not going to be good at all the things and I thought, well, she's wrong. I'm still gonna try. What do you know, anyway? It's that desire to, you know, always want to show up for your family. But also, then, I mean, ultimately showing up for your business and generating the revenue for your, you know, to afford your family and certainly still, it's still it's, that's, I think that's kind of the complicating piece, it's really still for your family.

Marissa:
Yeah. And you just have to recognize, I think, like, the more you know about yourself, the better you can sort of combat that guilt, right, if you know, you are a really ambitious person, you have to feed that you have to feed that part of you because if you starve it, that guilt is going to show up in different ways. You know, mom, guilt doesn't always come in, oh, I feel bad and take the kids to the park or I should have picked them up from school or whatever it is, it can show up in a plethora of ways it can show up in financial guilt. You know, even the fact that you feel guilty investing in yourself because maybe you want to, you should be using that money on the kids or putting it in the college savings account. It can come up you know, in time guilt of you know, just Should I take that Saturday and do something with my friends or should I hang out with my family, you know, it's sneaky. It shows up in many ways. So you know, the more you can become aware of what you need, who you are, what your form of self care looks like, and that changes by season by day. by time of day, you know, the better you can actually be at showing up in all those places. And I have to disagree too. I do think you can have it all. And I do think you can be good at all the things.

Tiffany:
Well, thank you. I think I think you're right. I thought the book was very good, very open and more honest and vulnerable than I thought it would be. But that was the part where I was like, Well, I mean, it was good, except this. I think, you know, that, that positive and kind of coming back to that more, like getting away from the scarcity mindset, and, you know, with time and with your energy and with effort, and at least, you know, being optimistic about what is possible, rather than starting with the, you know, the mindset of, well, it's not going to work anyway.

Marissa:
Right, yeah, I think a lot of moms, you know, when they're in the season of motherhood, whatever that is, whether that's with a new baby, and they're, you know, have got sleepless nights happening, or whether that's adding to the family and adjusting to that, or, you know, kids in school, who knows, whatever season it is, we tend to place these excuses, and they're very valid excuses. I don't want to minimize them in any way. But we tend to place them in front of our own pursuit of things that we want to do for our own goals, right? And we're like, well, this season is really hard, because XYZ or that season is really hard because of this. And, again, while they are very valid excuses, and they are, you know, legitimate, they aren't excuses. They are excuses, like we prioritize what's important to us. So in the end, I'm kind of direct, I'm originally from New York. So I'm really direct in how I coach and teach and train and all these things. And, you know, sorry, not sorry, but like it's on you. If you're not prioritizing those things, it's on you.

Nobody's knocking on your door telling you to prioritize your business, prioritize your self care, prioritize this or that, you have to make it happen,

Tiffany:
You have to be really confident in the direction you're going. There's a fitness influencer type person who's actually local to me, and she has a, I think he's about two and a half. And he is really a part of everything she's got going on. And let me tell you, she cannot win on the parenting piece. She deals with it very well. But it's like, the people online who feel like they can offer her advice on how she should be managing her, you know, balancing the juggling of the child and the work and you know, not hard enough on the child and Oh, that's too far the other way. And I just, people really feel like they can offer that advice in terms of how you're parenting or how you're juggling or balancing. And so if you're not secure in incompetent in what you're doing, it's very easy then to get pulled into, you know, oh, maybe that was too far. Or maybe that wasn't and that's challenging. And I think it's really more unique online. People just feel like they can offer their

Marissa:
Hopefully it's like people, what do they call it, like, when you drink beer, like to get more social, like they drink like Courage, juice, it's totally online, right? People feel like they're behind the screen, they can say whatever they want to say trolls come out more frequently online. Absolutely. Yeah. But I agree. I mean, I think and I struggle with it too, sometimes myself, because I'm a pretty private person, in general. But I know, I know, when I can be vulnerable in my business.
That's when I connect the most with people. Like, for example, when I published my first book, time management, I, who the day after it got published, I was like, I had a vulnerability hangover. I was like a hole. Now people are actually going to read this, oh, my God. You know, there's a lot of personal stories in there. But the best and most frequent piece of advice that I or a piece of feedback that I got from that book was the relatable factor. And it wouldn't have come if I hadn't shared those really vulnerable stories.

Tiffany:
And that is the balance. It's the balance of, you know, the vulnerability and the, you know, relatability and whatnot. I haven't published a whole book, but I was a part of a book, actually, just as I was leaving corporate, almost like a Chicken Soup for the Soul type book, where we each kind of had a chapter and a story. And so when the book came out on launch day, my grandma, who I absolutely adore, was like, she was buying the book. Day one, she needed the book. And so it arrived quickly. And so she calls me and says, So I read, I read, I read your book, I said, Oh, this is great. Because you shared a lot. Oh, no. Right. Totally. It was this moment of like, oh, no, and she's like, Yeah, do you think it's gonna be okay? For me or not?

Do you want to hear after your publication goes live?

Yes. Because I thought oh, my goodness. So I can I'm like, okay, okay, and I know what Okay, I'm like, it's, I feel like it's almost because it was just as I was leaving corporate, I would probably have gotten a slightly even more different, like a different direction if I wrote the same story now in terms of being a little more vulnerable and whatnot, but in that moment of leaving, you know, corporate and sharing kind of my story, and and then, you know, at that moment with my grandma, it was like, I was I was feeling okay, until she called.

Well, now I want to read the story. What book is this? So it's

called Women of worth. Wow. And I was in the ninth book, women in business in a changing world, there's quite a few different stories. And you know, it was such an incredible project to be a part of, because all the different women were writing about their stories and different stories, and it was a very incredible experience for sure.

Yeah, that sounds really powerful. And I'm sure it will be very helpful to those who are reading it.

It was really my first big exercise in vulnerability. And you know, let's you dove

right in.

dove right in and, you know, I, I often joke now, I haven't seen my comfort zone since that moment, it was like, we jumped Yes, right out of the comfort zone, we just kept going. Tangible tips that someone could implement tomorrow, and, you know, get benefit by the end of the week. What are those pieces that people can get that quick win?

Marissa::
Okay, yes, I think we kind of talked about this a little bit earlier, which is your mindset around time, right, and really looking at time from a scarcity mindset. So if you are someone who finds themselves saying I don't have time, often, or if you catch yourself saying that, I want you to flip the script, on these words, I want you to start replacing I don't have time, with it's not a priority to me. So let's quickly exemplify this. So let's say you're someone who really wants to exercise. But you find yourself saying often I don't have time to workout, I don't have time to exercise, I don't have time to go to the gym. So now I want you to flip that around. And I want you to say exercise isn't a priority to me going to the gym isn't a priority to me working out isn't a priority to me.

And what's going to happen is you're going to go one or two ways. And to me, they're both winning, you're both winning, right? No matter which direction you go. So in one direction, you say this out loud, and all of a sudden you feel lighter, you feel better, you feel less guilty, less shame, because you know what, it's not a priority to you. So why are you trying to convince yourself it is right? And that's fine. And this can be temporary, maybe it's just the season you're in, maybe it's just the day, maybe it's just the week. And you know what, as soon as you kind of like lift that off your shoulders, you can kind of just free up a ton of mental space and go on with your day in like a much better mindset and mood, right with less guilt flushing, so winning, in my opinion, even if you don't get to get the exercise in on that day, the other way that you're going to feel is you're not going to feel so good. When you say this out loud, working out isn't a priority to me, you're gonna feel achy, you're gonna feel really misaligned. And what's going to happen is you're gonna find a way to make it a priority, right, you're gonna wake up earlier, or go to sleep later or use a lunch hour or, you know, fit it in, in between calls, or whatever it is. Because it doesn't align with your values and what actually you want to be a priority in your day. So you're going to figure out how to make it one

Tiffany:
factor different, you know, two very different reactions, like you said, both wedding and depending on what it is, you know, if you're adding these unnecessary things to your task list that really aren't a priority that you feel obligated to do. And then you say, you know, that's not a priority to me right now. You might think, yeah, that's, that's true. That's right. Like me it's just not the right time. I find the working out piece is, you know, the exercising and all of that when you're in the routine of doing it, when it's a part of your schedule. It fits your you know, there's it's You can't imagine not doing it. It's like that's part of your routine. I'm a very routine, habitual person. So even when I like to travel for different conferences or whatnot, I feel just disorganized if I like eating different foods and those kinds of things. But when you're when you're working out, it's just a part of it. And when you're not working out, and it's not a part of your schedule, the thought of where does it fit? It's your like, I can't imagine coming up with that amount of time every week. But it's once it's back a part of your schedule and routine if you've kind of fallen out of that it truly is. Just become part of it. Yeah,

Marissa:
I totally agree. I think habits are so important. So helpful, so necessary in my membership program. Right now we're actually doing quarterly challenges where we implement a new habit. So habits scientifically take about 21 days to stick. So for 21 days, we are right now in our second quarter quarterly challenge. We walk at least a mile a day for 21 days or so.

Tiffany:
You said that this is a new program. Is it still open for people to join in? Where could they join in if they were interested?

Marissa:
Absolutely. Yeah. So it's called Bayes management club. And it's a monthly membership program. We do monthly group coaching. We have monthly experts, guest experts who come in and do a workshop. We have weekly check-ins for accountability and support, get your questions answered. There's a resource library of fabulous training and downloadable PDFs and quizzes and lots of great things. And it's really, and we do these quarterly challenges, as I mentioned, and it's really for the moms who are juggling, you know, building, growing their business alongside motherhood and all the other hats that we're wearing.

Tiffany:
Sounds like a really, really interesting program and probably some, you know, community building going on there as well, when you're finding kind of those like minded people,

Marissa:
for sure. For sure, yes.

Tiffany:
Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for being here today. It's really been fantastic. And I love that, you know, you can be a mom and be a business owner and whether that's the mompreneur to you or whether that's something different. It's ultimately juggling and finding ways to do so. That feels good to you.

Marissa:
Yes. When you feel good, you do good. That's what I like to say.

Tiffany:
Well, we are all out of time for today. If you guys have not joined the service based business society Facebook community, make sure you head on over to Facebook and we can continue the conversation. Be sure to also follow the show by going to any podcast app and searching surface based business society. Click subscribe, click the fifth star and leave us a written review. Have a great week and we will see you soon