On today’s episode, we are so excited to welcome on Erin Shebish. Erin is a certified mindset coach for solo entrepreneurs and she helps women find their version of success by gaining clarity, direction and confidence. Today, we are talking about Erin’s personal journey where she went from a little bit of a hot mess to setting boundaries and creating systems within her business. We will also hear more about her journey throughout The Strategy Academy and how she was able to handle all of that with some major health crises.
There are very few business programs that also offer an emotional component and this is something Erin has managed to balance beautifully with her business. In this episode, we find out how she was able to re-discover her real passion, pivot her business and implement it without any real hiccups. Erin gives us actionable steps we can start implementing today for our own emotional well-being and business processes. We hope you will take her experience and learn how to apply it to your own life and business today.
One of the questions we frequently get asked on the show is, “how do we manage it all?” with everything going on in our busy lives, business, our own physical and mental health and general well-being. Erin has an interesting story about the challenges that cropped up in her life while in the thick of her business venture, how she overcame those challenges and the lessons she has learned from those experiences. Erin has been working online for seven years. Five years ago, she started to have some physical issues; extreme fatigue, pain and migraines. Eventually, all of her symptoms came to a head while Erin was in the middle of running her business, transitioning into a new business model, managing three kids, tons of clients and a massive summit. She had two major abdominal surgeries and is currently still in the thick of her medical urgencies while continuing to run her business successfully, as well as her life! How has Erin managed to keep it all together, healthily and still keep happy?
There were two things that really made a difference for Erin. These two things helped her keep her business afloat, stay happy and not run herself into the ground - 1) setting up boundaries and 2) setting up systems. These were two areas Erin was previously lacking in and once she implemented them, her life and business changed. Erin was always a “yes” woman. She said yes to everything. But she hit a point where she realized that every time she said yes, and her plate got more and more full, the more her stress and anxiety increased. Like a lot of us, she felt so guilty about saying no. Eventually, she realized that by saying yes, she was no longer being helpful to the people she was saying yes to. She was being harmful. Harmful to herself and others. She then started to set boundaries, tell people when she couldn’t take something on and identify the emotional vampires in her life. It came down to just addressing things head on, drawing lines and backing out of things she just couldn’t manage at the time. Most of the time, when you say no, people will understand. The world is not going to fall apart!
Despite all of the health issues Erin was having, she was not willing to let go of her business. This is why she decided to start implementing systems to help her. Erin had previously no systems in place in her business. Eventually, she sat down and thought, “How can I automate this?” She began researching different tools, researching social media schedulers and set aside time to do that. She started looking at what other successful people were doing to maximize their workflow efficiency and avoid living in front of their computers. That is how Erin found Trello and The Strategy Hour Podcast. She took the Trello course and everything just fell into place. She is now addicted to Trello, where all of her workflows are. Her day-to-day runnings are no longer frantic chaos. Her whole year has been an organizational year and initially Erin, like a lot of us, didn't think she had the time to implement these systems. Because it takes a lot to get organized and set up, it takes time but that time is very quickly made up once your systems are in place. It only took Erin a weekend to set up and it has saved her so much time!
A lot of the time business owners do things because we feel like we should.
Erin wanted to use her summer time to streamline what she was doing and make every step count. A lot of the time business owners do things for the sake of doing them. Because we feel like we should and there’s no strategy behind it. Erin wanted to make her time count, so despite having a lot of experience, she wanted to re-start her business with a more solid foundation by taking a course. She decided to take the Rock Your Biz course and then moved onto The Strategy Academy. The biggest takeaway Erin took from those courses came from the first couple of weeks, digging into the “Why?” This is something Erin had done so many times with her clients but had never really dug in with herself. This allowed Erin to shift her business and shift into a new role from where she had positioned herself before. She discovered her specialty is in the mindset. This is where she would thrive.
Erin was good at what she was doing before but she wasn’t excited about it. Now, when she gets on the phone, she is so confident and passionate about what it is she is doing it’s contagious. The confidence factor has been a huge pull for her and she currently has a full client roster. She’s had a huge return on investment to the point she could kind of sit back for the rest of the month with no push for product of course creation. The truth is when you really get excited about “Why?” and get fired up about it, you can sell anybody anything. You can lose all those icky tactics and don’t have to worry about how to market really. Just talk about what you’re doing! Erin had a great response from her clients when she told them about the new direction her business was going because it was so true to who she was. She outlined her business direction in a video and of course personal contacts with her clients. We often convince ourselves that people will resent us for making changes but most often that’s not the case. We are the only ones holding us back. So, don’t be afraid of change if it means you are being true to yourself. Your clients will appreciate that!
Now Erin has her new systems in place and she is in a different place medically. Erin felt great after her surgery recoveries but then in the middle of summer, strange things started coming up. For example, she lost feeling in one whole side of her body and was experiencing chest pains. She went to a neurologist and was told she had multiple sclerosis. Erin wondered if she might end up in a wheelchair. She wondered how she was going to manage her business and she had an emotional breakdown from it. She thought, “I’m a mom. I’m a business owner. What happens if this doesn’t come to pass?” Having systems in place enabled Erin to outsource certain things, ask for help and just honor herself and where she was. Having her systems in place enabled her business to still run when she was having those down days. A part of Erin’s story has been realizing she has MS but it doesn’t have her. Erin’s whole goal is to empower women to do whatever the heck they want to do, no matter what obstacles are in their way. She has been using her experience to learn from, teach from and inspire others. Kudos to that!
Have more than one stream of income.
Erin Shebish is a certified success mindset coach for solopreneurs. Her passion is helping women find their version of success by gaining clarity, direction and confidence while eliminating the doubt that may surround pursuing their dreams. She's ICF Certified with a focus on positive psychology and is driven by helping others in an impactful way. Erin is also the host of the Life Made Lovely Podcast, a podcast focused on the heartfelt side of running a business and co-hosts the Blog Fuel Podcast. She is based in South Central Pennsylvania but her clients and community are located worldwide. When she's not working, you can find Erin at home, with a sweet tea in hand. More often than not, she's chasing 3 boys around, with her husband right beside her.