The hidden tax of living through hard times

Speaker 1 0:02

Do I tuck my tail between my legs even further and just avoid these people all together and like shame spiral? Or do I do the brave thing and reengage and if so, do I act like nothing ever happened?

Leah Neaderthal 0:17

Welcome to Smart gets paid with me. Leah Neaderthal, I help women run more profitable consulting businesses, getting more of the clients you want and getting paid way more for your work without sacrificing your time. But I've never been a salesperson. My background is in corporate marketing, and when I started my own consulting business, I learned pretty quickly that it's about 1000 times harder to sell your own stuff than it is to sell someone else's so I taught myself how to do it. I turned it into a methodology, and now I teach that proven methodology to my clients. So whether your consulting contracts are $10,000 $100,000 or more, if you want more clients you love, more work you love, and they get paid more than you ever thought possible, then you're in the right place. Let's do it together. Thanks for tuning in, and don't forget to rate, review and share. Hey there, Leah here, and thanks for tuning in. I hope wherever you're listening to this, wherever you are right now, I hope you're having a great week, making some good progress in your business and taking some time for you. So I want to start today with a story, and I guess it's sort of a minor confession. So when my son was born, like all new parents, I was really overwhelmed. I mean, that's not the confession part. The confession is that I would drop the ball on the smallest things. Like I used to joke that it would take me three weeks to remember to Google something, you know, like, I would think about something and be like, oh, I need to look that up. And then, you know, just as soon the thought would like, leave my head, or I'd get distracted, and you know, three weeks later, I'd be like, oh, right, you know, I was supposed to look that up. And I would also do that thing where, you know, you get a text message and you sort of like, write the reply in your head, but then you never actually send it because it was in your head and not in your actual phone. And then weeks later, I'd be like, Oh, my God, I'm so sorry. You know, I wrote a reply in my head. And so that started happening when my son was born almost seven years ago, and now I have three kids, and one of them is six months old. And I mean, I'm still doing this stuff, because even though I'm not as overwhelmed, like there's still a lot going on in my world. I mean, I just discovered recently that I had forgotten to invite my college best friend to my daughter's baby naming. I mean, this is somebody who I've known since I was 18, and inviting her to the celebration of my third child, and I just forgot, and I was mortified, but, you know, honestly, I wasn't that surprised, because that's just kind of what happens when you have a lot going on and when you're overwhelmed. It's kind of like, you know, when you're really cold, your body pulls all the blood into your core to protect your most critical functions, like your organs, and, you know, all the things that keep you alive, and then your extremities go cold, you know, your fingers, toes, all the stuff that isn't essential to survival in that moment. That's what overwhelm does when you're operating at capacity beyond what your body's built to hold. The extremities go first the text messages you write back in your head and never send, or the friends you forget to invite, or the emails you mean to answer things that aren't technically survival. And when you're running a business while you're already sort of running on fumes, your business has extremities too, things like the follow ups you meant to send, or the prospect you had a great call with and forgot to circle back to, or the person you meant to write a thoughtful response to, and just didn't. You just didn't have the mental bandwidth. And here's the thing about overwhelm, it doesn't just make you drop the boring stuff. It makes you drop the exciting stuff too, because excitement asks something of you too, and when you're depleted, you just don't have it to give. So today, you're going to hear a coaching call with my client who's right in the middle of this, and she makes a confession. You know, with my clients, and on this podcast, we talk about what to do when a client goes to but in this case, my client was the one who did the ghosting. And what follows is a conversation about what to actually do when you've gone silent on someone you wanted to follow up with. But it's not just about going silent, it's about why. And you'll hear how your head trash can really just compound the silence, so that the longer you wait, the harder it feels to come back. You'll hear an incredibly helpful reframe from one of the other women on the call, which comes from a surprising source, and you'll learn a short but powerful script for re engaging someone without shame, spiraling. What you're going to hear comes from one of the small group coaching sessions in my program. So you're going to hear my client talking about her situation. You'll hear from me, and you'll also hear from a few other women in the group, all of them running B to B consulting businesses and weighing in with their own experience. It's really amazing to hear. I mean, this is what happens when you're in the right room, the collective wisdom. From these women is one of my favorite parts of running this program. So I want to send a huge thank you to everyone who is in this conversation for allowing me to share it with you. So take a listen, and I'll come back at the end and share a lesson you can apply to your business.

Speaker 2 5:13

I'm going to bring like my classic, like confession vulnerability time, because I would love some collective wisdom. So I have a hard time managing my energy. It comes in spurts. And, you know, I can, like, really lean in, and then either I get exhausted and withdraw or and, you know, kind of burn out, or get intimidated and withdraw, or hit an obstacle, or life gets busy and balls gets dropped. So in the academy called with the exercise was kind of how to re engage people that have been interested in the past and people that you've had conversations with in the past, and like my terrible confession that I hate, but is true is that, like, I have ghosted people which I like, hate that, like, not who I want to be, but like, you know, somehow has, like, coincided with one of those, like, something, right? So, like, I had a really good call with somebody, literally, like, day four of the covid lockdown, which obviously was crazy, really good call. She was super interested. Had really good chemistry. Like, I held the ball and like, I'll get back to you. And just didn't, I'm really interested. So two part question one, do I tuck my tail between my legs even further and just avoid these people altogether and like shame spiral? Two, do I do the brave thing and reengage and if so, do I act like nothing ever happened, like hopefully they have short memories? How would you guys tackle this? And obviously, I know all of you have your ACT way better together than I do. We would never do this, but this is my truth. I have ghosted people. Raise your hand if you've ever ghosted somebody, or drop the ball and follow

Speaker 3 7:17

up like a

Speaker 2 7:18

prospect client, or, yeah,

Speaker 4 7:20

just in general,

Speaker 2 7:22

I'm probably not a prospect client, because I'm probably the person who has been, like, ghosted on. So I don't like, I don't like doing that other people,

Speaker 1 7:33

because me neither, yeah, do it,

Speaker 2 7:37

yeah, and not when I'm, like, trying to seek their business. I don't ghost because they might show up somewhere,

Speaker 1 7:43

probably a best practice.

Speaker 2 7:44

Yeah,

Speaker 3 7:45

yeah. Brandi, oh, my God, give yourself some grace. We are going through this collective trauma called covid and like, literally, everyone is stressed out, like, I'm just, I'm going to wear my professional hat for a few minutes. Like everyone's bandwidth is tapped. Everyone is struggling. Everyone understands, because they're going through it too, which is kind of the cool thing about covid is that, literally, we're all stressed out too, but yeah, like, honestly, like, I would even just send an email. And when I say I would, I mean, literally, I am doing this too, is sending emails. It's like, hey, it's been a little while. Wow, there's so much going on these days. And then just like, lead into the like, newness, or the reconnect, or let's follow up on this. Because I think, like, realistically too, like, everybody else is so busy and so tapped that they might have forgotten it as well. Or maybe they're having the moment where they're like, oh, we should totally follow up with Lindsay. We haven't heard from her for a while. Oh, but maybe she's busy, or, who knows what's going on. Or then, like, 50 emails come in and they lose track of what they were going to do next, right? Like, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. I'm trying not to worry too much about it. And maybe we'll just, like, message each other and slack to, like, pump each other up for these calls, because I got to do them too.

Leah Neaderthal 9:03

I think it's a really awesome way to just be human, you know. And I have done this before, like we all, you know, we all raised our hand and in a framework that you just learned in the last training, it's a great like, elephant in the room. I've done this before where I'm like, Hey, I was going through my inbox, and I was completely mortified to realize that I didn't respond to you for like, 18 months.

Speaker 4 9:28

But is it

Speaker 5 9:29

2020 or is it 2021 or 20? I don't even know what year it is. So, like,

Speaker 4 9:33

they

Speaker 6 9:34

don't remember, don't it's like the giant zit on your nose. If you point at it, they'll see it. But if you don't you don't

Speaker 3 9:41

know me. Definitely

Speaker 2 9:42

don't like, respond to the email with the date in there. Yeah,

Speaker 5 9:47

yeah. Be honest about like you missed that. Like, be transparent about like you're bad. But like, move on, and honestly, you're gonna be so proud of yourself just for like, doing that, even if they tell you to, like, they. Post you back like you did it. That's one thing that I like worked on hard, because I used to do that in my corporate career, especially with vendors asking me to do stuff, like, no, like, not even gonna respond to you, because I've got a lot going on right now that I'm the vendor. I'm much different about it, right? Don't do that ghosting thing. But everybody gets overwhelmed, and they deal with things in different ways. Also, like, just remember to give yourself some like, Grace. Everybody deals with this stuff. They might not deal with it the exact same way that you do, but like, people are human. Remember, you're human. It's okay.

Leah Neaderthal 10:41

It is okay, yeah? I mean, without completely one downing yourself, you know, by calling out the thing, yeah, just like, oh my god, the last two years have been the wildest decade ever. You know what I'm saying? Like, just, just be human, and then be caring. Check on them too. I mean, if you've been, like, super overwhelmed, so is everybody, and we're all in this give yourself some grace, use it as an opportunity to be human. And then I think it's also worth a look to say, like, when you are in those moments that you described, like, what is it that makes this thing fall off, versus maybe something else? Was there something about this opportunity that, like, maybe freaked you out a little bit, yeah, yeah, yeah. Was it the client? Was it the work? Was it, you know, maybe just the wrong time. Did you feel like it would have demanded too much of you? Clearly, something came up. What came to mind,

Speaker 1 11:35

honestly, like, yeah. I mean, thank you for making me LinkedIn famous. By the way, I was so excited to see my name in your post, but it was the post about, like, breaking your own heart, right? And it's like, I

Leah Neaderthal 11:47

love that phrase. I'm using that all the time now,

Speaker 1 11:50

like, sometimes I preemptively like ghost and break my own hearts, that I don't get too excited. Like these were things that just seemed so exciting that they were terrifying,

Speaker 5 12:00

like you were worried you were gonna do it right, or you were worried that you weren't gonna get the job,

Speaker 1 12:05

that, like, I would disappoint them, or like they're local, like, ruin my reputation locally, I don't know, yeah, just screw up. Like, really fall on my face.

Leah Neaderthal 12:18

So you kind of sabotaged it,

Speaker 1 12:21

yeah, million percent.

Leah Neaderthal 12:22

Did you know that you were doing that at the time?

Speaker 1 12:24

Probably, I'm sure. And then the longer it goes, you know, the like, the more you can't do anything about it.

Speaker 5 12:31

Yeah?

Speaker 1 12:32

I mean, yeah, that's a lie, but that's the saboteur, you know, right?

Leah Neaderthal 12:37

More on how to re engage without shame, spiraling after this, you know, I think that, and again, this is, like, a great topic for, like, somebody who's way more qualified at this than I am, like, you know, a therapist, a therapist or whatever, but like, we do, you know, maybe do some therapy, like, here, you know, I think this question of, like, what if it works out, well, like, What if it's good? Yeah,

Speaker 5 13:00

yeah. Yeah. So I've shared before I do Al Anon. Anyway, my sponsor says your greatest fear is just as possible as the best outcome. So, like, I love that quiet to everything, because when you can get paralyzed by fear and worry and just not do it, as evidenced by my like, how do I do sales, and that's like, the thing that I get hung up on. So in revisiting that whole well, will they like me? Will they not like me? Like, I mean, there's a lot of steps between the conversation them hiring you and you delivering the work

Speaker 1 13:35

totally

Speaker 5 13:36

so, like, Don't get overwhelmed by the end state would be my little tip. Start with the first step.

Leah Neaderthal 13:43

I love that. I love that, like, your greatest fear is just as likely as the best outcome.

Speaker 4 13:48

Yeah,

Leah Neaderthal 13:49

and yeah. Statistically speaking, there is nothing that says you're going to fail. Wow. And also, do you routinely, like, screw things up and fail?

Speaker 1 13:59

I have, like, a history I, like, almost didn't turn into my college thesis, like it was a whole thing, like I just got real in my head about this.

Speaker 6 14:10

So I'm an overthinker and self criticizer, and have been since I was a very small child. So my mom's approach, because the positive angle, did not work with me too much of my father's daughter. The other part was to get real about the negative. So instead of me making everything, I think she'd say, all right, all right, let's game this out. What really, I want you to be realistic, what is the worst thing that could realistically happen? And when I would game that out, it's not going to be it ruins of my reputation that this client is a hire me again, and they move on to someone else, and we're all professionals, and okay, that's if that's the worst, and she'd go, Is that so bad? And so I try to do that to myself. Now, if

Speaker 5 14:51

anybody watches, this is us. We did that on the show the other day where they, like, Randall and his wife play the, like, worst case scenario game, where they're like, Okay. Worst case this happens, no worst case that happens. And I was like, I love that. Never mind people.

Speaker 7 15:06

Another way, like, scarcity mindset plays out for me is that I think, like that one opportunity is the last time, like it's my last chance to make it so if I can kind of try to think of abundance, like I'm a vessel. Like it's one thing. It's one opportunity. There were going to be others. And so whatever happens with this one thing is not the decider of my fate. And so it just helps me to also right size it and not stay in a place to get it so much power.

Leah Neaderthal 15:34

Offering, not asking, offering, not asking,

Leah Neaderthal 15:39

exactly, exactly. So is there one of these that's lodged in there so far?

Speaker 1 15:45

I mean, one that has been really helpful is the permission to just be human and to not totally out myself in my humanity, but to like, acknowledge and like move forward and at least just clear the table, right? So don't feel like I'm in debt. That's you.

Speaker 7 16:03

Yes,

Speaker 1 16:03

that would feel good.

Leah Neaderthal 16:04

Yeah. And can you make it something that you do with the recipient, not in just a loan? Yeah?

Speaker 1 16:10

Yep, yep. I like that. Thank you. All

Leah Neaderthal 16:13

right, you guys. Well, you guys, it has been so amazing to work with you, and all the ways that I've worked with all of you, and thank you for being such amazing participants in this program and for trusting me to help you and trusting each other to help you in your journey. I'm so excited to work with you in the evolution if we were getting to do that. And if you're thinking about it and you're not sure, reach out. Let's talk about it, and we'll see if it's the right fit for you, and otherwise, I look forward to seeing and celebrating you and all the good things you

Speaker 7 16:47

do. Thank you. Leah,

Speaker 5 16:48

yeah. All right, you guys.

Speaker 7 16:50

All

Leah Neaderthal 16:51

right, talk to you guys later. Bye,

Speaker 4 16:53

bye,

Leah Neaderthal 16:53

hi. All right. So that conversation hit on something that I think a lot of us are carrying around without realizing it, because what my client was describing in that call, you know, the head trash going silent, that's something you do when you're overwhelmed. I mean, not you. I mean the royal you. But actually, you know, a lot of us do do it more often than we want to admit. Like, how often have you opened an email that needs a response and you're just like, oh, I can't right now. I mean, that's a lower stakes version of what my client described, but it's still a symptom of the same problem, overwhelm. And I don't just mean having a lot on your plate. I'm talking about having a lot on your plate and running a business in the midst of everything we're living in, and something else about that conversation that you just heard. It was actually recorded during mid to late covid times, but from the topic, I mean, it could have happened last week or six months ago or yesterday. And that's the thing about overwhelm or burnout, or whatever you want to call it. We've been living in versions of it for years now. Our nervous systems have been operating in this like too much zone for too long, and the symptoms show up in the small things like the friend you forgot to invite or the email you never sent. And so if you're dropping things in your business right now, you're not broken, you're just a person living through a long stretch of hard things, doing your best. And the part that surprised me even hearing it, you know, over and over again in editing is that overwhelm doesn't just make it hard to do the boring stuff, admin, inbox, all those things you probably don't want to do anyway. It makes it hard to do the exciting stuff too, like the opportunity you actually want, or the call that lit you up, or a friend who reached out and wanted to get together. Because even excitement again, asks something of you, and when you're already depleted, the potential upside can feel as scary as a downside. That's what was underneath my client's ghosting. It wasn't that she didn't care. She cared so much that it scared her, and she didn't have the capacity in that season to hold that so when you think about who you've gone silent on. You know, take a look at which ones make your stomach drop a little. Those are probably the ones that matter the most. So what can you do about it? And that's where I like to pull out one lesson that you can apply to your business. And today's lesson has two parts. The first part is, be kind to yourself. I mean, really, like if you've got a list of people to follow up on or whatever before you do anything else, just take a deep breath and try to stop beating yourself up. You're not failing at business. You're just running a business in a world that's asking so much of you and your nervous system is responding the way that nervous systems are supposed to respond when they're overloaded, they pull back and protect the core. And this is what Dr Emily nagaski and her sister Amelia write about in their book called burnout, which is an amazing book, highly recommend. And one of their arguments is that burnout isn't a personal failing, it's a physiological process. Our bodies just aren't built to live in a constant state of stress. So if your business is showing the symptoms of that, then it's a signal that your body is reaching the edge of its capacity. And so in their approach, getting through or healing from burnout isn't a function of just, you know, pushing through or sucking it up or having a better automation or productivity tools or whatever we need to do, what they call completing the stress cycle to tell your neurological system that it's okay now that we're out of danger. And they give a few things that you can actually do to let your body come down. And the number one thing they recommend is movement. You can take a walk, you can go for a short run, dance in your kitchen, do jumping jacks, just something that lets your body register that the threat has passed. And I'll tell you, my wife and I actually do this with each other when she's stressed out. I'll say to her, like, do you need to do some jumping jacks? Or she'll do a few push ups, and I'll do the same thing when I get stressed out. And it sounds silly, but it really works, like it's amazing. How much doing you know, 20 jumping jacks reduces the stress you feel in your body almost immediately. And another thing they recommend is breathing like these long exhales, focusing on making the breath out longer than the breath in. And that's something you can do at your desk between calls. Our Academy coach Brandi Zimmerman talked about this in Episode 125 called breaking the burnout cycle. So when I say, be kind to yourself, I mean, give your body what it actually needs to come down, you know, move, breathe, then come back to your inbox. And part two of this lesson is the how to part. So when you do come back to those people, stop trying to write the perfect, polished email that pretends like nothing happened. Just be human. Send something that says, You know what, I was going through my inbox and I was mortified, or horrified, or whatever word you like, mortified to realize that I never circled back to you. I'd love to pick this up if solving this problem, you know, insert problem here is still something you're interested in. People know you're human. They want to work with humans, right? You'll always be more relatable to your prospects and your clients when you show up as you instead of trying to show up as some super polished person of who you think they want. So I'll leave you with two things to sit with this week. One, what's one way that you can complete the stress cycle so you can reduce your own overwhelm, or even just knock it down a few degrees? Are you someone who'd rather do 10 jumping jacks or take a few long, slow breaths and two, who's one person that you've gone silent on that you actually want to come back to just one? And what would it take to send that showing up as a human email this week? And listen, neither of these has to be perfect, you know, take one breath, send one imperfect email that's enough for this week, because we're all paying the hidden tax of living through hard times, every one of us, and it shows up in ways you don't always notice. So be kind to yourself this week. All right. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll see you next time.

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