build_a_life_You_Love_Ep107_Kevin_Rizer_tues_oct_5_21
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
peoplelifeworkhomestarteddaykristendreamsspendscheduleimportantyearsjobvaluingabsolutelymonday morningbookbreaklearnburnout
SPEAKERS
Speaker 2 (50%), Speaker 1 (50%)
Speaker 1
Here’s what I want to ask you. What is holding you back? What is the thing that’s holding you back from going after your dreams and from finding meaningful work you love? Aren’t you ready to wake up to the possibilities that are in your life and go after the things you’ve dreamt up, it’s time for you to feel alive again lit up, and for you to know that you’re deserving, and you are worthy for the future that’s waiting for you. I want you to feel fulfilled and find abundance in your life. I think it’s time and I’m ready to help you get started. Now, I’m your host, Kristen, of building a life you love. And each week on the show, we’re going to help you figure out how you do go after your dreams and find what you love. Here we go. Let’s get started. Hey, beautiful friends. It’s Kristin, your host. And welcome back to another episode, we are going to have a great conversation today about working from home, the ins and the outs, how we can be intentional with our schedules, and our time to really keep those boundaries of our personal and work lives in a place where we can really enjoy our days. And how do we make sure we’re doing work that we enjoy, and that we feel good about and why we need to check in with ourselves regularly. So I think you’re gonna get a lot out of this conversation and I can’t wait to get started. Here we go. Hi, today on the show, I would like to welcome Kevin riser. He is an entrepreneur, and he is the founder and CEO of Emmys best pets. He’s also the author of the new book, always wear pants and 99 other tips for surviving and thriving while you work from home. Welcome, Kevin.
Hey, Kristen, thank you so much. It’s great to be here.
Speaker 1
salutely? Well, I know we’re gonna have a great conversation because as I shared with you what, before we started recording, I have also like yourself worked from home for a very long time, actually, since the early 2000s. So I look forward to to this conversation, one to encourage people that you really can make this a really great way to work, and to just to give them tips and ideas and some encouragement.
Speaker 2
Absolutely. You and I are both veterans, I guess they’re working from home.
Speaker 1
We definitely are we were not just thrown into it during the pandemic, for sure. So let me first ask you can you share with the audience a little bit about your journey and your backstory through you know, what you’ve done, and then what you’re currently doing now?
Speaker 2
Yeah, thanks so much. You know, I’d like to think that I was born an entrepreneur, I was the kid with not only the lemonade stand out in the front yard, and, and selling cookies and wanting to get the biggest prize from the fundraiser that my school or my sports team was doing each year. But it took me a while to actually become an entrepreneur, I studied journalism and broadcasting and the first half of my career was spent working in TV news and traveling the world and seeing lots of neat things and meeting lots of neat people. And then after a while I kind of got tired of that and kind of felt that I had realized and gone as far as I wanted to go in that field. So I got into marketing and and eight years ago I was doing marketing for health care facilities and I was working 60 to 80 hours a week I was just miserable at my job and so I had a friend that had gotten into e commerce and started in that journey and I kind of watched with amazement like most of our other friends for the first year or so and and thought he was crazy and then after after a while I kind of started to get interested so eight years ago I learned everything I could learn about e commerce because I knew nothing at that time. And I started a pet products brand selling products online and and so I’ve spent the last eight years doing that and meeting lots of interesting people and experiencing the ups and downs of not just entrepreneurship but of life. You know, the struggles, the pitfalls, the successes, the failures, but I’ve enjoyed most of it, I’ll say and it’s been a great experience and you know, so that’s that’s what I do and or that’s what I’ve done the past eight years or so. And so when the pandemic hit last year, the working from home for me was nothing new the new thing was watching so many millions of other people learn to do it for the first time and and I’ve had had fun kind of talking with them and writing about that over the past year.
Speaker 1
Yeah, I was just going to ask you, what kind of prompted you to want to write that and it was I think it was basically that right was watching people that seem to be struggling or not sure how to figure this thing out quickly. Well, when they had to.
Speaker 2
Yeah, it was the funny means on Instagram and Facebook. That was quite what led me to it was the funny videos and the pictures of people’s kids. We were talking offline about kids in the background or pets in the background and So it was watching people both struggle but also succeed and finding the humor in it that first drew my attention to it and made me want to study it a little bit closer.
Speaker 1
Oh, I love that and actually get to share a funny story related, but I was doing a podcast interview this summer with a woman, she’s a writer, and she has young children. And her child was coming in the background, you know, in her diaper, but we’re recording right on, it wasn’t live, but it was it is a recorded video. And eventually, the young little toddler ends up you know, on the desk, and a sofa jumping up and down without any clothing on and you know, and I’m sitting here trying to, you know, keep the interview going. And of course, afterwards and I mean, it was the it was literally the highlight of my day, it was like the best thing, because I was like, That kid is just free, right? And so but it just once again, hit home, that whole point, like, there’s gonna be these moments now, you know, as long as it’s not the adult doing that, you know, that the kids or the dogs are going to come in. And, you know, so to me, it makes me kind of happy actually, because, as I talked about before, you know, 10 or 15, or 20 years ago, if your kid or your dog came in the room, you felt like it was not very professional, you know, if you’re working from home, but now everyone kind of gets but real life is gonna keep going on right around us. You know, and so what I would ask you from that is is in doing the book researching to do the book, what would you say that one of the biggest challenges is that, you know, folks are having currently working from home, you know, during this pandemic.
Speaker 2
Yeah, Christian, what a great question. I think exhaustion and burnout has to be at or near the top of that list. You know, I think that for a lot of companies, when we all shut down in the early days of the COVID pandemic, a big fear was that people would just sit on the couch and eat potato chips and watch TV and wouldn’t actually work, right. Meanwhile, study after study shows that most people actually work more when they’re working from home, they work harder, the productivity goes up. So we’re really good as it turns out, at working from home, what so many of us struggle with, and I put myself in the same box, even, you know, a decade into it is taking time for ourselves, it’s those mental health breaks, it’s making sure that we’re eating properly, it’s making sure that our bodies are moving, and being active. It’s connecting with other people so that we don’t get isolated. So I realized I crammed four or five things in there, but I’d sum it up, sum all of it up. It’s just saying that the lack of so many of those things, for many of us working from home is leading to burnout and exhaustion.
Speaker 1
Yeah, so So in other words, and that’s basically because we’re not doing a good job of balancing or setting boundaries, right? Around work, or working personal, I guess, because it’s all in one space now for so many. What would you say in that sense, though? Like, do you have any Top Things that either you do or you know, that you’ve seen people are doing to try to make sure we’re scheduling in those things, right, connecting with people having a little fun, and making sure that our day isn’t so jam packed or evening because we’re not shutting shutting things off, that we can actually breathe a little bit and actually enjoy this this new construct, if you will? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2
I think the first step for me and for many is to just take control over your schedule, right, so the workday should have a start and end time and that doesn’t mean that that can’t change from day to day or week to week or project to project and it also doesn’t mean that you can’t have some flexibility in there after all that’s one of the great things about working remotely is that it can’t afford us more of that flexibility. But taking control over your schedule allows you to free up some time then for some of the things that you may have been neglecting things like going for a short walk in the middle of the day to clear your mind and get your blood pumping a little bit or taking time to actually eat a lunch and not at your desk while you’re hammering away at that report but rather leaving your home workspace and and eating lunch somewhere else to give yourself a little bit of a break I think there’s there’s some really quick easy wins that people can realize by having a dedicated start in time and by scheduling in some time for you even during the work day.
Speaker 1
Yeah and I think a lot of people do feel they feel this pressure that they shouldn’t do that but that means the studies have been out that show we’re more productive when we take time to prep we take time to learn we take time to take a little break you know let our mind get clear and so you know I would say to the people that are struggling with come you know scheduling in a little bit of time for themselves those breaks though taking a little walk and by the way you know if you have to you could actually do one of your calls on your walk you know you don’t have to not be working if you really can’t put it down. So I think it’s that’s important to mention right is but like you said they were in control of this, you know And we might say, oh, but our boss or employer, but I disagree. And if it’s really that tough of an environment, maybe it’s not the right place for you in the long term, you know, which I think we have to look at that honestly, to if, if there’s not some flexibility and some level of respect for our work, you know, that they realize that, look, we are in a very different place we are now than we were two years ago, you know, my family or my, my own personal things might need something different than two years ago, what was acceptable, and so I think that’s a real conversation people have to have, too.
Speaker 2
Yeah, I couldn’t agree more, you know, and look at the big companies who employ workers on a job site, right? They’re mandated to give breaks. And every state every situation is a little bit different. Sometimes it’s a 15 minute break every four hours, there’s typically a longer break more suitable for a meal if you’re working a full day shift. And, and that’s because of the harm that can come from workers. Not taking breaks, right. And so we need to be mindful of that. And most organizations do allow for breaks. What they may not do when you’re working from home is stipulate, okay? From this time to this time, this is your break, it’s a little bit more free flowing, like everything when you’re working remotely. So taking ownership of that, and scheduling those in if you’re the type of person that kind of lives and breathes by your calendar, put a 15 minute break in there every couple of hours. Put time in there to take the dog for a walk, or to check in with with your kids or a spouse if they happen to be home as well be intentional about setting yourself up to succeed. And try it out. Because I like you. I know many skeptics who think that they just need to work from the beginning of the day to the end. And they often don’t take breaks, but give it a test run. And I think I think you’ll see that that it really does improve the level of performance, and most importantly, the way you feel about the work that you’re doing.
Speaker 1
Oh, absolutely. So I know another challenge, right? That we can all have, whether we’re working from home or not, but most importantly, when working from home is, you know, there’s been lots of isolation, we are not we don’t have time to chit chat, you know, in the office, maybe we’re not seeing our friends as much. So there’s one that isolation that’s going on, but there’s also because of everything going on the world, there’s a lot of stress, there’s a lot of anxiety, we were holding on to a lot more. And so I like one thing you talk about your book, and like the way you talk about it is you talk about, you know, what’s the one thing so what’s the one thing that’s holding you back? And you know, in what’s where’s the resistance? So can you talk to us a little bit about that? Because I think that’s an important thing for us to continue to look at revisit.
Speaker 2
Yeah, there’s, there’s something that I call the Monday morning feeling, Kristen, and that is, how do you feel on Monday morning? That alarm clock goes off? Are you excited about getting up and starting your day? Are you dreading it, wishing you could sleep just a little bit longer wishing it was still Saturday or Sunday. And throughout my career, regardless of what job I’ve had, or what work I’ve been doing, it’s been a good barometer, it’s been a good way of saying, okay, am I on the right track here? Or is something a little bit off course. And so I think for a lot of people that one thing is just that gut check, right? Because if if that’s amiss, if the if the work you’re doing, and I’ve seen many studies continuing you even up until recently, where the majority of Americans hate their job, right? They’re not happy with the work that they do. And we spend more time most of us in our work life than we do on anything else, right? Think about that more time than we do sleeping more time than we do. Hanging out with our family and our friends more time than we do on our hobbies and our interest. That’s an awful big percentage of our life to be miserable. So the one thing is really about just identifying what is it that’s holding you back most because when we get into a place of despair, or of unhappiness, or depression or anxiety, we’re not happy with the direction that our career is going or life is going. It can seem insurmountable. There’s all of these things that seem wrong and I think it’s important to have that gut check and start to diagnose Am I happy with the work I’m doing my happy with with where I’m at or do I need to make some changes and and go from there?
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think what’s important is we shouldn’t wait until maybe so much is piled up right like it like you said it might feel overwhelming or insurmountable but if we check it with ourselves every week, right you know, even beginning end of the week, but it just comes like you said how’s how’s it going for me, you know, or for you or whoever. I think it’s a good way to sort of set you know, a litmus test to say like, okay, where am I at right on this range. And if you find that You keep kind of going up on it and not in not in such a positive way. And we like you said, we need to address it, we need to say like, is this something I can I can address I can deal with it I can make a change happen? Or is it really just not the right fit or what you know, but I think it’s up to us to try to continuously check in with ourselves and then make those shifts if we need them, you know, not wait until it’s gonna explode, if you will, you know, blow up.
Speaker 2
Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. You know, I was, I was on vacation recently, first one, I’ve been able to take in a while. And in addition to all of the things of getting ready, you have COVID, now that you’re thinking about, and you’re trying to make sure that you can travel safely, and so on and so forth. And the vacation was great for me in so many ways. But one of the things I noticed is that I had waited way too long, right? In order to do that, I pushed it off and told myself that it wasn’t a good time, and there was too many things going on. But it was a great realization that you’re so right, you got to take these things on as they come and bite off little chunks instead of waiting so long, to the point where you’re in a position of burnout, or of extreme fatigue, and that type of thing.
Speaker 1
Absolutely. Well, so let me let me ask you this, we both talk about or discuss, kind of defining our lives, you know, so that we can when left live our best lives go after passion and work in purpose in our work, but then, you know, we also kind of have this thing about, we should be able to redefine our work for ourselves, right? And maybe not today. But at some point, we should kind of I think most people have the goal of wanting to set their schedule that aligns with what they want their life to look like. And so what did you what, if anything, do you have to say about that about how can we do that? How can we take that maybe those first couple steps to work towards redefining our life, which might include redefining our work schedule?
Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely. It kind of goes back to what we’ve we’ve been discussing around, you know, being happy. I mean, I believe a couple of simple things. One is that I believe people should enjoy the work that they do, I think it should fulfill them and give them a sense of purpose and passion. And I think people should, you know, be paid a living wage and be able to, you know, meet their obligations and their needs and have a little bit for fun, have a little bit left over at the end of the day. And, and so those are a couple of basic things. And when you talk to people that aren’t happy with what they do, and so often you’re right, that can translate into just not being happy. Because again, work is such a huge proportion of what most of us do throughout the course of our life. If that area is not fulfilling if it’s not supporting our needs, if it’s causing financial duress, etc, then it makes the rest of life a lot more difficult as well. So I think that gut check is is an important one. And I think getting really clear on what would a great situation, what would you enjoy doing is often the next best step? If the answer to the first question that Monday morning feeling is Oh my God, I’m miserable. I can’t believe I have to get up and do this again today. If that’s the answer, then my suggestion for the next step is to take out a sheet of paper and just dream a little bit. I think so often we get caught in a career. I talk to people every week that say, Well, I’m a you know, I’m a doctor, I’m an attorney, I’m a teacher, I’m, I’m this I’m that. And I hate it. I’m so burned out, I wish I had never done this. And then you say so. So why not make a change. And immediately you see the wall come up, right? And they say, Well, I’m too old, or I spent too much money to go to school and learn this, or, you know, I could never replace my income if I were to start over. And most of that is just head trash that we tell ourselves, right? I love hearing stories of, of the woman in her 70s who decided that she was finally going to become an artist or the man who quits is, you know, well paying job in his mid 40s and says screw this, I’m going to I’m going to do something that that I really love. So I think most most of those challenges and obstacles can become, can can be overcame, but we have to be willing to make that decision or to at least explore it. So I’m a big believer in and kind of, you know, starting over and dreaming a little bit about what might be more fulfilling for you in that area.
Speaker 1
Oh, absolutely. In two things there that I would add. The first is 100% agree with you. I think we are always iterating or hopefully we are because I think if you’re not growing, if you’re not learning then there’s stagnation, which as we know is is never a healthy place to be right. You’re shriveling up, if you will. So I think one you should be iterating. And you should be saying, Hmm, what would happen if I did this thing? You know? Or what would you know? What would this look like? And on that, I think if people realized that no one’s saying, like, go quit your job tomorrow, and you have no income, and you have no, you know, unless it’s really just a really dangerous or bad place, like there’s a serious risk. But otherwise, you know, it’s like, just go explore, just take a tiny step into learning something new, like when you jumped into e commerce, you don’t really think about it, you said, You know what, there’s something here that I think, interests me enough that I’m going to spend time learning. And so I would just encourage people, where’s that? Where’s that kernel? Where’s something that you’re like, you know, what I really love baking or whatever it is, will maybe just take a step in that direction? Have somebody test your food, or whatever it is. The other thing, you know, it’s on the mindset you were kind of alluding to, but a lot of people take those statements of what if what if someone laughed? What if I can’t make up my own income? So we take the what if statement and make it negative? Instead of the people that can shift that and go? What if I could actually make this into my business, and I could have unlimited success, you know, I could have financial security and then some. And so I think one thing we have to do is we have to realize we were keeping ourselves in the box, right? We’re keeping ourselves there because of what we believe to be security or safety. But really, it’s not it’s it’s literally just keeping us in a in a box, instead of saying, like, well, what’s outside, what’s the big wide world? What else is out there? And like you said, I think too often we don’t follow our passion, our instinct, because we were told for most of our lives, especially, you know, maybe not the youngest generations, but those of us that came up with, you know, came up for, you know, like, Oh, you need a job, a serious type of job, a stable type of job in they tried to say that creative type jobs wouldn’t necessarily pay as well. But of course, as we all know, there’s a million ways to make plenty of money to support yourself, and it can look like anything, you know. So I think you’re right in saying you do have to dream, kind of, like, what is it you want your life to look like? And what is the work you want to spend your hours doing? And there’s always a way, even if you can’t figure it out, there’s people to help you figure out how to put those things together. You know,
Speaker 2
that’s, that’s some great wisdom there. Did you share Kristin and keep in mind, when I got into ecommerce, it was supposed to be a hobby, right? Like I had a job, I was making decent money, I hated what I did, right? So in a sense, I was where we were talking about here, I was miserable, and a horrible attitude about Monday mornings. And, and I had all the head trash too. But I decided that I was going to focus on the what ifs, this is successful, and not the what if this fails, and pursue that and plenty of people thought I was crazy, you know, my mom was still sending me job openings until about three or four years ago. There’s that but you know, you’re so right. So often we can be our biggest limiting factor. And so having conversation and this is another one is surrounding yourself with the people that you want to be like, or the people who have something that you want. That was an early piece of advice for me, that I got from someone that really changed the trajectory of my life. And when they presented it, to me, it was something like you are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with, right. And so when I took some time, and let that kind of marinate and sink in, and I looked around at the people I was spending the most time with, and I began to see the similarities, I began to see the negative ways of thinking, the waste of time, the waste of resources, the way that it affected the outlook on my life. And so that’s another kind of quick win that I think people can take is to just, it’s not in a judgmental way. And people always ask me, can I do I have to count my spouse, you know, so you can exclude them, you can exclude the people that that are in your everyday life for a reason. But we all have have a choice about the people that we surround ourselves with the people that we spend the most time with, doesn’t mean that you have to cut people out of your life necessarily, although sometimes that may be necessary as well. But if we take a look at who we’re spending the most time with, and then make some strategic changes there. The sum of averages means that, you know, we will begin to do and to think more like they do.
Speaker 1
So lately there’s been so there’s so many stories on this 1000s probably millions, that someone literally lived in one town. They ended up having a move getting connected in with a different group of people doing similar things, what they’re doing and what happened. You know, for two years, they struggled to make their business kind of get going. They move in I had no clue what the minister had to do if they found a community of people. So whether it’s an online community, whether it’s in person, but they found me People that help lift them up and help teach them and that they could then teach others. And like you said, it’s so important, that connection and like you said, it’s not necessarily getting rid of people, it’s saying, I want to make this change in my life, it might be that you want to start something like a business or side hustle. You what you have to do is say, What am I interested in? What do I need to learn, even if you don’t need to learn, go find people that are trying to do something similar. It can be joining groups online, it can be, you know, paying to be in groups, which is absolutely fine. If you’re gonna be learning and with people that are going to help lift you up, you know, it could be reading books and pot or listening to podcasts that are going to start putting that right, like you said, the right mental mindset work in your head that you can start thinking new thoughts instead of kind of get stuck, like you said, with the head trash. So I think you I’m glad you brought that up, because I’ve talked about this often, and it’s so important, and I think people really undervalue it, you know, the impact that can have, I mean, I even have many examples from my own life, you know, I have one girlfriend, she’s wanting to start a business for some time. And I told her recently, actually about an e commerce program, and she, she jumped into it, she’s never done anything, she’s not tech savvy at all. And she still has, you know, worked with this other thing. But my point is, is just for me kind of sharing stuff with her over the time. And I finally said, You know, I almost didn’t mentioned it to her and I said, hey, there’s this one program you might be interested in and she looked at it, she’s never even spent money on stuff like this, you know, I’m like me and you in our spaces, we probably have quite a bit and, or we know people that have, she had not, but it was because we talked about it often, you know, and I’ve shared things with her. And then I said, You know what, I’m gonna tell her she doesn’t have to do it. It doesn’t benefit me at all right? It just, and she said, I’m gonna do it. I’m so excited. And she’s been on top of it, right? But it’s because there’s people around her that are doing other things that no other information in her sharing it. So I think we got undervalue. And I think we need to not be afraid to mention to people things, you know, because even if they say, No, you know, eventually people, you hear it multiple times, and you start, then it starts processing. So I think it’s important to keep bringing it up, you know, I mean, my friends can’t get away from me from talking about, you know, what, if you’re not happy, you’re thinking, aren’t you starting something, let’s talk about what that could be, you know, like, you’re probably sick of me saying that, but
Speaker 2
I’m gonna you’re an entrepreneur, evangelists, Christian, you know, and I,
Speaker 1
I do, I love helping people figure out what they could do. The other thing I want to mention, though, that we’ve sort of script and talking about kind of maybe it’s secondary, is value. If people are in a place where they’re not valued, then I think you need to seriously look at that. And I sort of mentioned that earlier, if you work at a company, and they’re so stuck on, you have to work these hours. And now you have to be in at 7am until whatever hour, okay, if you work on assembly line, or something that’s your, you know, trash person, I get it, there might have to be set hours. But if you’re somebody that works at a computer all day, or something where it’s remote, there’s really no reason, in most cases where you can’t have some flexibility. So if a company values, the work you do, and the value you bring to that company, then they should be willing to compromise with you at some level. So that’s the first thing I tell people, because I’ve talked to some people, they’re like, no, now they want me to work these different hours. But it’s really hard for me to do that. And I’ll be like, why? And they’re like, they just said, I have to, you know, and I’m like, Okay, well, you might need to delve into that a little further. You’ve been there for 15 years, and they, they’re really not valuing your time or what you need. And I said, that’s maybe a problem. The second thing is, with the valuing, or I’m sorry, the defining are what we want. For instance, I’ve mostly worked for myself for oh my gosh, I don’t even know, let’s say 15 years. But three and a half years ago, I ended up taking a full time position until just this past December for an old colleague of mine, marketing technology. And, but the thing is, is I knew some time ago, like, okay, I’ve done it, but get back to being doing my thing. Like I have all these things that were on my list to do, and I need to get back to it. And so I went to them and said, Look, I’m I’m ready to move on to other things, but I’m not necessarily trying to step out the door fully. So I went to them. And he’s like, What are you thinking? And I just said, Well, I’m thinking 10 hours a week at my consulting rate, you know, and he’s like, okay, you know, and so that’s what we did for most of this year, that’ll wrap up, you know, sometime in the next month or two. But my point was, is it gave me a little bit more runway, right to kind of get things going that I wanted to move into that I wasn’t doing for some time. But people are afraid to ask for what they want. And so I think it’s important to remind people what’s the worst that would happen, he could have said to me, well either choose to stay in the position as it is, or you can just have a runway to get out of here in a month or 60 days or whatever, right like, but to me there was really no neck I wasn’t going to lose from asking and too many people are afraid to ask because I think they think they’re going to get fired. But if you actually bring any value to the company, they’re not going to fire you today. And if they are maybe to leave anyways. You know
Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely, if they’re if they’re that willing to let you go, then you may not need to be there long term to begin with. I think the key, Kristen is, is that no one’s ever going to value you more than you value yourself, right. And so it starts with that internal dialogue of, of what I’m worth, and, and what, what I want to do, right. And when when do I want to do it, and it sounds very selfish. But again, I keep coming back, we spend most of us more time working than we do anything else. So it’s worth it to get really clear and really intentional. But don’t expect your employer to value you more than you do yourself. So if that desire is to start your own thing, if that desire is to simply make more money, I see people all the time who are afraid to ask for a raise for fear of being fired, right or afraid to ask for more time off, for fear of being fired, the world is a big place, and especially if you work from home, your potential employers are almost limitless, your potential is so much greater than it was even five or 10 years ago. And so sometimes that difficult realization is that the place that we’re currently at is not ever going to value us in the way that they should. And it’s time to look elsewhere, either by starting your own thing or by simply looking for a new fit elsewhere. But But getting creative as you suggested, and as you did is a great way to go. I never advise people to just throw caution to the wind and and you know, quit what they’re doing now, obviously, unless there’s some existential reason, some immediacy involved but take the time, be thoughtful. Just decide for yourself what success and what value would look like. And then make a plan through small actions through small imperfect actions, right? To start making some changes.
Speaker 1
Oh, absolutely. Oh, such good stuff there. So let me ask you before we wrap it up, and maybe you can share a couple little tips or resources with us. Any other words of encouragement you’d have just for people that are navigating through this, this crazy world we’re currently living in with you working from home? And hopefully they’re wearing pants already, you know, but bear with them.
Speaker 2
Yeah, thanks so much, Kristen. Be kind to yourself. That’s tip number one, you know, as you mentioned, we’re all dealing with a lot right now. Life can seem very heavy, the world can seem crazier than ever. It’s really easy to let our fuses be burnt to the end and, and then that has a way of kind of spreading throughout throughout society, you know, people that are pissed off and angry and, and, and that type of thing have a tendency to kind of become infectious. But you know, it’s really cool. So does positivity, sodas, really small gestures of kindness for other people, I always love going to a coffee shop and being told, oh, the person in front of you has paid and then doing that, and, and seeing that chain, that one small act, you know, brightens so many days. So be kind to yourself, be kind to others. Life is too short. And we’ve all got so much to look forward to.
Speaker 1
Oh, absolutely. So what about any tools or resources that you’ve really enjoyed as being you know, as somebody that works from home that you’d like to share?
Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely. And I can send you a list too. And feel free to post these. But there’s a couple of things that I read each morning, which kind of helped with some of that mindset. And one of them is called the daily motivator. It’s a blog by a man named Ralph Marston. It always has a way of kind of setting my perspective for the day and putting me in a good mood. Another is a tool called Vox, which I’m a big fan of communication tools, and anything that can get me out of email. I’m a big believer that email, especially when you work from home, is can be the death of anyone or any organization because a recent study showed that most people working from home spend as much as four hours a day in their email boxes, and it’s so counterproductive when there are other resources, whether that be slack. One of my favorites now is Vox, which allows you to send short audio messages either to one person or an entire team.
Speaker 1
Awesome. Yep. But definitely use both of those as well. So fantastic. And can you let us know how can we connect with you learn more about your book and all that good stuff?
Speaker 2
Yeah. And let me say first, Kristen, thanks so much for having me on. This has been a great conversation and I’ve enjoyed it so much. I’m pretty easy to find on the social networks and You can always visit always wear pants calm To find out more about the book, which is available at Amazon and Barnes noble and pretty much anywhere that you can find good books these days. And I love meeting people. So please reach out and connect and say hi, I can’t wait.
Speaker 1
I’m sorry, you under Kevin riser then online as far as Instagram and those kinds of places.
I am. Yes. Wonderful. Well, thank
Speaker 1
you so much for taking the time to be with us today. I think it’s such an important and, you know, informative conversation we got to have today,
Speaker 2
Chris, and I so enjoyed it. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Oh, my gosh, such good stuff in that conversation with Kevin today. I loved it. And I just want to leave you with this idea. But from my friend, Rebecca float in her book, on your brush, she says this, every moment of your life is a seed. You’re either planting seeds for your vision of what you want, or you are planting seeds of doubt that your dreams will not happen. Every moment you don’t invest in your future. You are doubting what could and will happen. Dream large and take action, creativity reigns and what is available to you now, don’t wait for your dreams to come to you. Use what you have and start planting. Ah, I love it. Seriously, it’s up to us, we have to step into the things we want. We have to go after our dreams. We are responsible for finding the work that will fulfill us in that we will be passionate about and want to show up on Monday mornings with that good Monday morning feeling as Kevin mentioned. So I would just encourage you check in with yourself. How’s it going? Are you happy in your job are you fulfilled if you’re not do something about it, don’t wait. either ask for what you want in your position. Find the next thing or start something new and shirt started on the slide get it going. But just start think we do need to know what we want in order to define life on our terms. And we have to be willing to break the past scripts so that we can move into better and more beautiful and amazing thing. And if you’re looking to figure out what it is you can go after what creative pursuit you can start. jump on over to my website at Kristin Fitch calm and go under Resources. There is a no limits create skill and monetize your creative passion printable PDF, that I would love for you to grab and start taking your dream seriously and get let’s get going. You can start going after your dreams today. And if you enjoyed the show, we’d love it if you’d subscribe and leave us a review and rating on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you have ideas for the show, or guests that you’d like to recommend, I’d love to hear from you. So DM me on Instagram at Kristin Fitch or you can email me from the website. Thanks so much. And thanks again for listening in. Until next time, have a great week.