February 16, 2022 • 35 mins
Kelsey is joined by Joe Hall as we discuss saying no, workaholism in tech, and how the pandemic with COVID-19 has affected our ability to say no.
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Unknown (00:03):
You're listening to the story shout podcast hosted by
Kelsey Jones. We're a weeklypodcast dedicated to
destigmatizing failure andlaughing at our normalcy. Don't
forget to subscribe and leave areview on iTunes.
Hi, everyone, Welcome to Storyshout. My name is Kelsey Jones.
(00:24):
And I'm joined here today by JoeHall. Joe is one of my friends
in the marketing industry, Ithink we met at a conference or
maybe through Search EngineJournal. But, Joe, thanks so
much for joining me.
Yeah, thank you so much, Kelsey,for having me. I was really
excited to be here. I'm really abig fan of your work. And, of
(00:46):
course, this is my first likeexperience with you as a
podcaster. But I know all ofyour content work is so
incredible. So this is a reallyexciting to see what this is all
about to hear.
Thank you. Yeah, I've, you know,ever since I started that
podcast, with Search EngineJournal, like years ago, I
(01:09):
always have missed doing it. Sothis has been a really fun
experience. And I get to talk toall my friends. It's an excuse
for them to talk to me.
Yeah, that's awesome. That's areally good excuse. Yeah.
Joe, so what are we going totalk about today? What do you
suck at?
What do I suck at? Like, I feellike I could probably write a
(01:29):
book about that, of that topic.
You know, man, it's not alwaysobvious to because I, if you if
you know me online, at Kelsey,you know, you follow me on
social media, but he follow meonline, you know, but I do have
a pretty big ego. So talkingabout what I suck at, I think is
good. For me, it might be goodtherapy, to seek a little bit
(01:49):
more humility. But, uh, so, uh,one of the things that I suck at
and really come to mind over thelast year as then, not saying no
enough, and and just saying yesto too many things. And I've
always known this about myself.
(02:11):
But it's gotten worse. I feellike maybe in the last couple
years. And so it's somethingthat I'm top of mine, to kind of
tackle this year, to startsaying no more often. Um, Shea
was a little a little bit shaky.
Yes. A little bit less, youknow,
(02:31):
oh, there you go. Do you thinklike everything that has
happened with COVID has been acorrelation to you saying yes,
to more things.
Yeah. Because here's the thing.
So like, this is what happened.
And it kind of started beforeCOVID. But I run my own
business. And I am a kind of asolo entrepreneur. And so a long
(02:57):
time ago, one thing it was aboutwhile ago is like 2016, maybe I
was at a conference. And I wastalking to another fellow SEO,
another solo entrepreneur, soloconsultant. And she had said
something to me, like reallystruck with me. She said, that
(03:18):
cuz I asked her, I was like, Sowhat do you do with what type of
consulting Do you have? And shewas like, Well, I basically just
do whatever needs to be done.
And like, that kind of reallyopened up my eyes a lot.
Because, up until that point, Iwas the kind of selective over
the type of consulting when Idid, like I, you know, I do SEO,
but I would really only use acertain type of SEO, or work
(03:43):
with certain types of clients orcertain types of projects. And
when she mentioned that, I waslike, wow, that's, that's
interesting. Like, it seems soobvious, like he's do whatever
needs to be done. But I hadn'treally thought it a whole lot
that way. And so I started totry to apply more of that. And
(04:03):
what happened was, my revenue,like went through the roof,
because I was taking on moreprojects, and it was like, Oh my
God. And, um, so initially, Iwas like, Whoa, like saying yes,
more often. That drives up myrevenue. And if you're a solo
consultant, or a soloentrepreneur, you know, the cash
(04:26):
flow is really very importantthing. You know, like, there are
some, some months where you makea ton of money, other months
where you don't and so havingthat steady flow of income
coming in, is like superimportant. And so when I saw
like, all this revenue go up,because I kept seeing yesterday
different days. I was like,Well, this is what we're going
(04:49):
to do like you get like, likelimit the number of times I say
no, like really minimize thatNo. with clients and and
different projects that comeacross my desk. And, and that
kind of started before thepandemic. And, and I had this
mentality that then even then Ihad this mentality that hey,
(05:09):
like, if I just spend less timewatching Netflix, then I can
make more money, you know, andI, so I guess I just spent less
time watching Netflix orwherever and, and that was easy
to for me because like I'm, I'msingle I don't have kids or
anything like that. So it's easyfor me to make those decisions,
(05:30):
you know. And so in giving thatlike I, again, I just worked
more and make more money, but,and then when a pandemic hit, it
was like that, it was like thatthe tally is like hyperdrive,
because I didn't have anythingto do, like he go anywhere, and
you can't visit with anyone. Andso it was just like, Well, what
(05:54):
do I do, I was gonna work. Andit was like that in overdrive.
And then something weirdhappened to during the pandemic,
I think it was because of whereI've kind of like, position
within the industry or, orwhatever. But my leads for worth
went up, like went through theroof. And so not only was I
(06:14):
saying yes to more things, but Ihad more opportunities come
towards me. And Anyways, longstory short, that resulted in me
saying yes, to way too manythings. And it was a failure,
because I became less focused onwhat mattered for each project,
(06:37):
or each task involved. Because Ihad a million things to do. And
I became overwhelmed, a lot oftimes have a longer my to do
list got, the more like,overwhelmed I got, and the more
the feelings of like, like, I'mnot going to ever get out of
(07:00):
this, you know, situation. Andthat also turned into with a
feeling of, like, overwhelming,but it was also kind of like
burnt out. Um, and, and then itgot to a point where I had a ton
of stuff to do, but I wasn'tdoing much of anything. Because
(07:20):
I have so much to do, you know,it's like instant, it's like,
well, this is a problem. So I'venow finally kind of gained out
from under a while that work.
And now finally kind of likecoming up. And so my goal for
this year is to say no moreoften, and to not take on the
(07:45):
world, you know, and kind ofthink of it that way, you know?
Yeah, I think that's reallygood. When I first started
freelancing, and I was single,well, I had a boyfriend, but we
didn't live together. And I waslike you, I would just like work
all the time. And it tookseveral years before I got
(08:05):
burned out. But I realized thatI was burned out when it was
like you like I would just sitthere I had so much stuff to do.
And I would just sit there, Iwould know where the days would
go. I mean, I don't it was theweirdest it was the weirdest
time because you just for me.
And it sounds like you're kindof like this too. When I feel
overwhelmed, I just kind of shutdown. And so that took like
(08:27):
probably even another almostyear before me realizing, okay,
I have to be smarter about thisand saying yes, everything can
get you more clients and morerevenue, like you said, but it
also is going to affect theresults that you're providing to
them. And it's also that's thengoing to affect you down the
(08:48):
line with revenue anyway.
Because if you're not doing agood job, then clients aren't
gonna refer you they're notgoing to, you know, ask you for
more work. Or they might end acontract early because you're
not able to keep up witheverything. So it is
detrimental. You think sayingyes to everything can only be
beneficial. But there are likedetriments to that as well that
(09:11):
maybe don't see.
And it's not really it's notfair to anybody involved, like
to the point like like I reachedto think also that like oh,
well, I want to help this personand I want to do good work for
them. And so I would say yes,and then turn out because I was
overwhelmed or overworked orcouldn't get to their project.
(09:32):
He actually ended up being a badexperience for them because
like, you know, I had the bestintentions going into it. But
because I wasn't able to fallthrough like a like I said one
or because the quality of workwas sloppy because I was doing
too much. It turned out to be abad experience for them. As soon
as it was the exact opposite ofwhat I attended to have for
(09:54):
them. Like I thought, oh well Iwant to take this client on
because I think I can do itbetter. They're getting older.
You know, and the oppositeturned out to be true because
because I took them on, Ishouldn't just given them off to
someone that I knew could handlemy job, it had time to do it.
And they can be taken care of,you know, so it really is
(10:16):
detrimental to everyoneinvolved. Not just me, but also
the client as well, or thecustomer, you know? Yeah. So
yeah, it is difficult. And I wasthinking about your podcast this
morning, and about how the topicof like, failure is, so it's
like, a, it's a power move,really, when you think about it,
(10:39):
like, because like, it's acatalyst for change, you know,
if you can understand, like,what you suck at, and analyze
it, then you can fix theproblem, you know, and I think
it comes back to, and we werejust talking about this a little
bit before we started recordingabout, like, having to embrace
(11:04):
vulnerability, you know, it goesback to, like, part is that
embracing vulnerability meansunderstanding, like, all those
icky points about yourself thatyou can improve upon, you know,
um, and I think that, I mean,this is why this this podcast, I
(11:24):
think, is so cool, because it issort of like a catalyst for
change, you know, and making aimporantly. Apply yourself, you
know, and learning for that, youknow,
yeah, well, and I think there'ssome things that you suck out
that need to change, like whatwe're talking about with you.
(11:45):
But then there's other thingsthat it's okay to be badass.
Like, I had a, I had an episodewith Amalia failure, Fowler,
she's in paid ads, and she'sreally awesome. But we talked
about procrastination. And onething he talked about that
episode was really good ifanyone listening hasn't heard it
yet. But one thing we talkedabout is when I realized that I
(12:07):
procrastinate all the time, Istopped, like kidding myself.
And like, so if I had a hugeproject, before, I would, maybe
over four months, assign adifferent deliverable one for
each month until the project isdue. But since I realized that I
procrastinate, I just havestarted scheduling it for the
week before it's due, because Iknow that I'm not going to do it
(12:28):
until then. So I just want uswith myself. And that came from
a lot of that came from theburnout too, of like,
recognizing, okay, I obviouslykeep putting this task off,
which means I don't really wantto do it. And if that's the
case, I either need to outsourceit, or I need to be honest with
how I work and how I am as aperson. And as a result, like,
(12:51):
how can I schedule this projector tasks that fully embraces who
I am, instead of wishing that Iwasn't a procrastinator or
wasn't like, lazy? In my eyes,I'm doing air quotes. Some, you
know, I think you have to behonest about your weaknesses.
And that kind of means workingwith them, too.
Yeah, exactly. And I reallytalked about procrastination, I
(13:13):
read this thing, it was kind ofan interesting take on
procrastination, it said thatpeople that procrastinate, are
actually very productive.
They're just very productive ofthe wrong things. And so like, I
thought about that with myself,like, when I procrastinate,
like, Yes, I didn't get done,when I planned on getting done.
(13:34):
But I gave watch, like, sixseasons of, you know, the office
stuff. And like, and it soundsgoofy, but like, if you think
about it, like, and I've donethis with my coding too,
because, like, I do a lot oflike just side programming
projects that are not it reallyjust for fun. And, um, I've
(13:56):
like, there's one project rightnow that we're working on for
the last four months. Um, and Iended up just working on that,
when I should have been doingother things, you know, but the
result is that I'm almost donewith this thing. It's really
awesome. So it's actually goingto help with with my business.
(14:17):
So it is really things whereit's like, you can be kind of
strategic with yourprocrastination and find things
that will benefit you and usethose things as like what you
are just tracking yourself with,you know, I'm least that's what
I found. But yeah, you're right,the whole like he asked yourself
(14:40):
about, like the procrastinationthing and scheduling thing
appropriately. I've done thattoo. I've absolutely done that.
You know,well and going back to being
honest and like saying no topeople, when you so this year,
have you started to say no toprojects and or people and when
you have what what's kind ofWhat'd you say?
(15:01):
Well, no, I haven't yet started.
And we're only 10 days into theyear. And actually, I actually
just, at the end of last week, Itold someone, I'd send them a
proposal for a project that Ireally shouldn't be doing.
Because it's, it's very small,and it's not something like I
normally do. And it's thoselittle tiny projects, like,
(15:24):
little tiny projects that Idon't normally do that eat up
all my time, you know, becauseit's stuff that it doesn't fit
within my model of business. Andso I have to, like, kind of
spend more time on it and stufflike that. But, um, but no, I
haven't started that yet. Andlike, I will say that, like, I
(15:45):
have turned down people in thepast. Like, it's not like I've
never said no, but the difficultthing about saying no, is, and
this is why I don't do it veryoften, is I want to feel like
they're taken care of, in someway. Right? And so I like to try
to find people I can referbusiness to, and quite honestly,
(16:07):
like, that has become more andmore difficult for me, because a
lot of folks that that I want tosend work to, they say no, for
the same reasons that I wouldsay no, you know, and so it's
kind of like a, you know, oh, itwas client's budget is too
small, or this is not the typeof work that I would normally
(16:30):
do, or, or whatever, um, when Isend it out to another
consultant or anotherfreelancer, it's the same
reasons. Like, they don't wantto take the client either, you
know, and it's hard to say no,in situations like that, because
I feel like, I'm not reallyhelping them too much, you know,
helping the business owner or,or the client. Um, so that's
(16:55):
difficult, you know, like, youknow, you kind of get over that
a little bit, you know, it'snot, you know, you are not, I
guess, like, I guess we had toremind myself a while is that,
like, these are really not yourproblems, you know, I hate to
say it like that, but, like,really like, like, they're not
like, you want to help people,but at the end of the day, but
(17:17):
you know, they need to, likeincrease their budget, or they
need to have a more time foryou, you know, like, I had a
client last couple weeks ago,that, you know, doing an audit
for him, he wants the audit donein like, a week, and I'm like,
I'll do my best, you know, butit's not going to get done in a
(17:40):
week, you know? And that's onthem. Like their schedule has to
be more flexible. So yeah, Imean, it is difficult to say no,
for a lot of reasons, but itdoes help everyone else in the
long run. You know?
Yeah, I think that comes back towhat you were saying earlier,
like, it's detrimental sometimesto say yes. And that makes me
(18:01):
think about. So my, one of myaunts runs an organizing
business. And I've helped her inthe past with SEO, and just some
website stuff. And she reallywanted to kind of this year, do
a retainer, and I just don'thave the bandwidth, because it's
a small project, but it's myaunt, you know, like, so I've
never know. And I did a projectfor her, I think last fall, and
(18:26):
it was like, really rushed. AndI feel like it wasn't very good,
but she was happy. So anyway,um, finally, she sent me an
email, I think it was last weekor the week before where she was
like, Look, I need help. Soeither, are you going to help me
or I'm going to find someoneelse like not mean, but just, I
really this was. And so Ireferred her to one of my
(18:48):
friends that I knew could takeit on and, and I trusted my
friend, but I feel likeprotective of her like, she's my
aunt, respect. It's not yourfamily member. I've had times in
the past where it's a reallysmall business owner. And you
can tell that they're justreally naive and don't know what
they want, really don't wantthem to get taken advantage of
(19:10):
by wanting those huge agenciesthat are going to overcharge
them and not really do goodwork. And so it's taking
everything i i have to not askmy friend if she's working with
my aunt or like not be involved.
Because I really want to go tomy aunt and say, Look, if you're
not going to work with Danielle,then you need to tell me who
you're talking to. So I can tellyou if they're bad, but that's
(19:32):
making me involved in theproject and my aunt's not, you
know, a dumb person, she'ssmart. She knows like the basics
of how SEO works. So I knowshe'll be okay, but I totally
get you in the point of like,it's so hard to say no sometimes
because for a lot of reasons,but you feel kind of protective
too and and it just makes ithard. I think like especially
(19:53):
when there's a lot of peoplethat will say yes, but it's for
they're not going to do theirpart
Yeah, so that's the same, like,I actually had that same thing
happen with my aunt, my aunt hadthe same issue. And it was a
friend of hers was starting thebusiness. And she wanted me to
(20:13):
help them with SEO. And ofcourse, you know, because my
aunt was involved in it, mymother was involved in it to,
not not involved in thebusiness, but involved in
knowing that I was helping myhead. And so because of that,
like, it got even stickierbecause like, you know, I can
(20:35):
charge them, because what am Igonna do charge my ad, and then
then, then then the budget iscriticized by my mother, you
know, it just gets sticky. So,uh, so I ended up giving this
like, small project for them,but honestly, the result of the
whole thing was just me advisethem not to do SEO, because I
(20:59):
did a competitive analysis forthem. And I was, like, look,
like to get started, just to getstarted, that's, you know, you
need like, five to 10 grand, youknow, you don't have that. So
you can't do it, you know, um,and I think like, that was my
expert opinion. It took me like,a few days to figure that out.
(21:23):
And, of course, it wasn't goodenough, because my mother came
back to me. And she says, Don'tbe so negative, you know, don't
be so just guaranteed to yourad. But it's like, Mom, that's
my, that was my professionalopinion. And, you know, like,
and so, you know, that was notgood. And I think that, like you
said that, like, there are smallbusiness owners that you come
(21:47):
across, that, you know, like,you know, that if you say no to
them, he turned them away,they're going to find some small
outfit, that doesn't charge verymuch money, that just takes
their money and runs, you know,but doesn't do very much good
work. And you feel bad aboutthat. And that was really what I
was trying to, I was trying tonegate with my aunt was like,
(22:10):
Hey, listen, if you go to acompany, and they're not going
to charge you like, three 5000 amonth, that are ripping you off,
like so don't, don't focus on,you know, these really cheap,
SEO alpha, it's because they'renot gonna be doing good work for
you, you know, I'm here to tellyou, like, you're not ready yet
for that. So it was it was, youknow, kind of a situation where
(22:34):
I felt like I was helping her,but I really should not have
been even, you know, doing that,because it took up a ton of
time. And it's not something Inormally do. Um, it took up a
ton of time. And it was it wassomething I wanted to say no to,
you know, and it's funny tolike, talk to my family. Like,
I'm sure you get this all thetime, Kelsey, like, do you get
(22:56):
people to come to you and saythings like, like, Hey, can you
help me with my Facebook? Orsomething soon as like,
completely unrelated to what youdo? And you're like, well,
that's not what I do. That's notlike, you know, when I do that's
not my specialty. Like, andthey're like, look at you like,
Well, why not? Like, come on?
Like, you do this somuch attack, you should just not
(23:20):
do everything in tech.
Yeah. Yeah. And so like, I haveone of my mother's friends
actually asked me what sheshould name her Facebook page
for her business. And I waslike, I don't I don't know who
like what's maybe your business?
Just use that. You know? It'sjust like, Oh, yeah. Okay. I was
(23:43):
like, Yeah, I mean, I don'tknow. Like, I'm not a Facebook
guy, you know, um, and eventhought, like I can, I can
recommend you to a Facebookperson, but never charge you a
ton of money. You know. So, youknow, it is difficult to say no
to people like that. That'sfine. The hardest people say go
(24:04):
to the people, the people youcare about, even when they're
attached to you in some way, youknow? Yeah, definitely.
Yeah, like friends or family.
And that even goes beyond work.
Right? Like, I don't know if youstruggled with this, but like
saying no to friends or familythat want to do something like I
(24:25):
had, oh, like a couple weeksago. So in Kansas City, there's
this thing called the plazalights. And there's this
district in Kansas City whereall the buildings look like
they're in Spain. So all theselike Spanish brick buildings,
and they line all the buildingsin the whole district with
lights and it's really awesome.
So I wanted to go and you go,and there's like restaurants and
so I wanted to go, maybe go eatat a restaurant and walk around.
(24:48):
So I asked my friends to go andI was on a meeting like I asked
the question then I got on ameeting well, but by the time I
was back, suddenly they haddecided that we're going to
lunch instead. And I got so madbecause I'm like, the whole
reason I texted you is to seethe dumb lights that don't come
on till 5pm at night. So Iprobably apply the best way. But
(25:10):
I was like, I'm not going tobrunch. Because last year, I
realized I had some foodallergies. So I have to avoid
like eggs, green, and mostlydairy, all the good cornerstones
of brunch. So I went tangent,and I'm like, Well, I'm not
going to brunch. I don't likebrunch. And they had picked this
really fancy place. And I'mlike, I'm not going to pay $30
for like, some sausage, becausethat's all I can. And I just
(25:33):
said, I'm not going. I set it inlike a little bit of a better
way. I probably sound a littlebratty. But I was like, I don't
want to go to brunch, I justwant to see the light. Like,
hello. But that was an exampleof like, a recent sticky
situation where I'm like, I'mgood. Like, that's not what I
want. And I think, I don't know,I feel like with COVID it has
(25:53):
kind of changed my perspectiveon like, how I spend my time. So
I these friends are good enoughfriends of mine where I can say
like, I don't want to do that.
And it's okay. And I just seekto surround myself with people
where I can be like, Hey, Idon't really feel like going,
either. I don't feel well, or Ijust don't want to go.
(26:15):
Yeah, I wonder if I wonderthat's a good thing to think
about. Like, I wonder if COVIDhas helped people say no more
often, you know, like insituations like that, but their
social situation. Definitely,like for me with the business
side of it. It kind of screws meup, I say yes, more often making
the COVID. But I'm like you, Iactually do not really have any
(26:40):
friends. So I don't like havethese weird social, like things
I have in the past, like a bluemoon, a friend who asked me to
go do something where I justreally don't want to do um, and
then I'll be like, you know,like, I don't want to do that or
whatever. But I know normally Idon't really go out that much at
(27:01):
all. Really? I have that issuewith my family a lot though.
Like my sisters will ask me togo do stuff with them. And I
just don't want to, you know,um, like last night? Exactly,
exactly. Like, last night, theywanted me to go eat dinner at
their house, and I didn't wantto. And they were like, okay,
whatever, you know, and so I cansee how that is. But the social
(27:25):
social obligations, do you feelweird to say no to you? No. But
I, you're right, though, thepandemic is gonna like, I think,
adjusted everybody'sexpectations, you know, and
change people a lot. And I thinkit's more acceptable now to say
no, It's situations like that,you know, but that is so cool,
(27:46):
though, that you get saying no,like, you set boundaries for
yourself, you know? And, uh, youwere like, No, I'm not gonna do
that. Because, like, I don'twant to make myself sick. And
because I want to see spiritslights, you know, so that's
like, that's really impressive.
Yeah, thank you. Well, I feltlike they weren't listening to
(28:07):
me too. And that's, that'sanother podcast in itself. But
I'm like, that's all I said Iwanted to do and then it
evolved. And I told them thatand we had a good discussion
about it. Butyeah, I mean, like, that's
something to like, like, quit,um, I quit. Well, I got like, a,
like, five years ago, I gotsober. And so that's really
like, I'll be friends. Becausemost of my friends used to drink
(28:29):
a lot or they still drink a lot.
And they you know, other things,too, and I got added that whole
scene. Um, and that took a whileto readjust everyone's
expectations of me because theywere like, yeah, come on, do
(28:50):
this with me. Come on, do thisthat you know, and I'd be like
no looking to do that, you know,he just wasn't right for me
anymore. And so that changedthings a lot. But yeah, I went
through that whole thing likesetting up your own personal
boundaries for what you know isright for you, you know, both
(29:11):
like on an emotional level butthen also just on a realistic
kind of level of the life youwant to live you know,
I love that I'm and that mightbe a good like, thing to close
out. The podcast is like,setting boundaries, either with
yourself when it comes to work,or your friends. I mean, what
(29:32):
kind of things are you thinkingabout when you're going to do
that, you know, this year thatmight help someone else?
So I know that we talked earlierabout this is not supposed to be
a professional podcast. But Ithink that I don't really have a
life outside my work. So I willsay though, for a start setting
(29:56):
boundaries. I've read this booka long time. Well, not long time
ago, but a few years ago, I readthis book, and it's recommended
by a lot of business people.
It's called the E Myth. And heread that Kelsey,
You're listening to the story shout podcast hosted by
Kelsey Jones. We're a weeklypodcast dedicated to
destigmatizing failure andlaughing at our normalcy. Don't
forget to subscribe and leave areview on iTunes.
Hi, everyone, Welcome to Storyshout. My name is Kelsey Jones.
(00:24):
And I'm joined here today by JoeHall. Joe is one of my friends
in the marketing industry, Ithink we met at a conference or
maybe through Search EngineJournal. But, Joe, thanks so
much for joining me.
Yeah, thank you so much, Kelsey,for having me. I was really
excited to be here. I'm really abig fan of your work. And, of
(00:46):
course, this is my first likeexperience with you as a
podcaster. But I know all ofyour content work is so
incredible. So this is a reallyexciting to see what this is all
about to hear.
Thank you. Yeah, I've, you know,ever since I started that
podcast, with Search EngineJournal, like years ago, I
(01:09):
always have missed doing it. Sothis has been a really fun
experience. And I get to talk toall my friends. It's an excuse
for them to talk to me.
Yeah, that's awesome. That's areally good excuse. Yeah.
Joe, so what are we going totalk about today? What do you
suck at?
What do I suck at? Like, I feellike I could probably write a
(01:29):
book about that, of that topic.
You know, man, it's not alwaysobvious to because I, if you if
you know me online, at Kelsey,you know, you follow me on
social media, but he follow meonline, you know, but I do have
a pretty big ego. So talkingabout what I suck at, I think is
good. For me, it might be goodtherapy, to seek a little bit
(01:49):
more humility. But, uh, so, uh,one of the things that I suck at
and really come to mind over thelast year as then, not saying no
enough, and and just saying yesto too many things. And I've
always known this about myself.
(02:11):
But it's gotten worse. I feellike maybe in the last couple
years. And so it's somethingthat I'm top of mine, to kind of
tackle this year, to startsaying no more often. Um, Shea
was a little a little bit shaky.
Yes. A little bit less, youknow,
(02:31):
oh, there you go. Do you thinklike everything that has
happened with COVID has been acorrelation to you saying yes,
to more things.
Yeah. Because here's the thing.
So like, this is what happened.
And it kind of started beforeCOVID. But I run my own
business. And I am a kind of asolo entrepreneur. And so a long
(02:57):
time ago, one thing it was aboutwhile ago is like 2016, maybe I
was at a conference. And I wastalking to another fellow SEO,
another solo entrepreneur, soloconsultant. And she had said
something to me, like reallystruck with me. She said, that
(03:18):
cuz I asked her, I was like, Sowhat do you do with what type of
consulting Do you have? And shewas like, Well, I basically just
do whatever needs to be done.
And like, that kind of reallyopened up my eyes a lot.
Because, up until that point, Iwas the kind of selective over
the type of consulting when Idid, like I, you know, I do SEO,
but I would really only use acertain type of SEO, or work
(03:43):
with certain types of clients orcertain types of projects. And
when she mentioned that, I waslike, wow, that's, that's
interesting. Like, it seems soobvious, like he's do whatever
needs to be done. But I hadn'treally thought it a whole lot
that way. And so I started totry to apply more of that. And
(04:03):
what happened was, my revenue,like went through the roof,
because I was taking on moreprojects, and it was like, Oh my
God. And, um, so initially, Iwas like, Whoa, like saying yes,
more often. That drives up myrevenue. And if you're a solo
consultant, or a soloentrepreneur, you know, the cash
(04:26):
flow is really very importantthing. You know, like, there are
some, some months where you makea ton of money, other months
where you don't and so havingthat steady flow of income
coming in, is like superimportant. And so when I saw
like, all this revenue go up,because I kept seeing yesterday
different days. I was like,Well, this is what we're going
(04:49):
to do like you get like, likelimit the number of times I say
no, like really minimize thatNo. with clients and and
different projects that comeacross my desk. And, and that
kind of started before thepandemic. And, and I had this
mentality that then even then Ihad this mentality that hey,
(05:09):
like, if I just spend less timewatching Netflix, then I can
make more money, you know, andI, so I guess I just spent less
time watching Netflix orwherever and, and that was easy
to for me because like I'm, I'msingle I don't have kids or
anything like that. So it's easyfor me to make those decisions,
(05:30):
you know. And so in giving thatlike I, again, I just worked
more and make more money, but,and then when a pandemic hit, it
was like that, it was like thatthe tally is like hyperdrive,
because I didn't have anythingto do, like he go anywhere, and
you can't visit with anyone. Andso it was just like, Well, what
(05:54):
do I do, I was gonna work. Andit was like that in overdrive.
And then something weirdhappened to during the pandemic,
I think it was because of whereI've kind of like, position
within the industry or, orwhatever. But my leads for worth
went up, like went through theroof. And so not only was I
(06:14):
saying yes to more things, but Ihad more opportunities come
towards me. And Anyways, longstory short, that resulted in me
saying yes, to way too manythings. And it was a failure,
because I became less focused onwhat mattered for each project,
(06:37):
or each task involved. Because Ihad a million things to do. And
I became overwhelmed, a lot oftimes have a longer my to do
list got, the more like,overwhelmed I got, and the more
the feelings of like, like, I'mnot going to ever get out of
(07:00):
this, you know, situation. Andthat also turned into with a
feeling of, like, overwhelming,but it was also kind of like
burnt out. Um, and, and then itgot to a point where I had a ton
of stuff to do, but I wasn'tdoing much of anything. Because
(07:20):
I have so much to do, you know,it's like instant, it's like,
well, this is a problem. So I'venow finally kind of gained out
from under a while that work.
And now finally kind of likecoming up. And so my goal for
this year is to say no moreoften, and to not take on the
(07:45):
world, you know, and kind ofthink of it that way, you know?
Yeah, I think that's reallygood. When I first started
freelancing, and I was single,well, I had a boyfriend, but we
didn't live together. And I waslike you, I would just like work
all the time. And it tookseveral years before I got
(08:05):
burned out. But I realized thatI was burned out when it was
like you like I would just sitthere I had so much stuff to do.
And I would just sit there, Iwould know where the days would
go. I mean, I don't it was theweirdest it was the weirdest
time because you just for me.
And it sounds like you're kindof like this too. When I feel
overwhelmed, I just kind of shutdown. And so that took like
(08:27):
probably even another almostyear before me realizing, okay,
I have to be smarter about thisand saying yes, everything can
get you more clients and morerevenue, like you said, but it
also is going to affect theresults that you're providing to
them. And it's also that's thengoing to affect you down the
(08:48):
line with revenue anyway.
Because if you're not doing agood job, then clients aren't
gonna refer you they're notgoing to, you know, ask you for
more work. Or they might end acontract early because you're
not able to keep up witheverything. So it is
detrimental. You think sayingyes to everything can only be
beneficial. But there are likedetriments to that as well that
(09:11):
maybe don't see.
And it's not really it's notfair to anybody involved, like
to the point like like I reachedto think also that like oh,
well, I want to help this personand I want to do good work for
them. And so I would say yes,and then turn out because I was
overwhelmed or overworked orcouldn't get to their project.
(09:32):
He actually ended up being a badexperience for them because
like, you know, I had the bestintentions going into it. But
because I wasn't able to fallthrough like a like I said one
or because the quality of workwas sloppy because I was doing
too much. It turned out to be abad experience for them. As soon
as it was the exact opposite ofwhat I attended to have for
(09:54):
them. Like I thought, oh well Iwant to take this client on
because I think I can do itbetter. They're getting older.
You know, and the oppositeturned out to be true because
because I took them on, Ishouldn't just given them off to
someone that I knew could handlemy job, it had time to do it.
And they can be taken care of,you know, so it really is
(10:16):
detrimental to everyoneinvolved. Not just me, but also
the client as well, or thecustomer, you know? Yeah. So
yeah, it is difficult. And I wasthinking about your podcast this
morning, and about how the topicof like, failure is, so it's
like, a, it's a power move,really, when you think about it,
(10:39):
like, because like, it's acatalyst for change, you know,
if you can understand, like,what you suck at, and analyze
it, then you can fix theproblem, you know, and I think
it comes back to, and we werejust talking about this a little
bit before we started recordingabout, like, having to embrace
(11:04):
vulnerability, you know, it goesback to, like, part is that
embracing vulnerability meansunderstanding, like, all those
icky points about yourself thatyou can improve upon, you know,
um, and I think that, I mean,this is why this this podcast, I
(11:24):
think, is so cool, because it issort of like a catalyst for
change, you know, and making aimporantly. Apply yourself, you
know, and learning for that, youknow,
yeah, well, and I think there'ssome things that you suck out
that need to change, like whatwe're talking about with you.
(11:45):
But then there's other thingsthat it's okay to be badass.
Like, I had a, I had an episodewith Amalia failure, Fowler,
she's in paid ads, and she'sreally awesome. But we talked
about procrastination. And onething he talked about that
episode was really good ifanyone listening hasn't heard it
yet. But one thing we talkedabout is when I realized that I
(12:07):
procrastinate all the time, Istopped, like kidding myself.
And like, so if I had a hugeproject, before, I would, maybe
over four months, assign adifferent deliverable one for
each month until the project isdue. But since I realized that I
procrastinate, I just havestarted scheduling it for the
week before it's due, because Iknow that I'm not going to do it
(12:28):
until then. So I just want uswith myself. And that came from
a lot of that came from theburnout too, of like,
recognizing, okay, I obviouslykeep putting this task off,
which means I don't really wantto do it. And if that's the
case, I either need to outsourceit, or I need to be honest with
how I work and how I am as aperson. And as a result, like,
(12:51):
how can I schedule this projector tasks that fully embraces who
I am, instead of wishing that Iwasn't a procrastinator or
wasn't like, lazy? In my eyes,I'm doing air quotes. Some, you
know, I think you have to behonest about your weaknesses.
And that kind of means workingwith them, too.
Yeah, exactly. And I reallytalked about procrastination, I
(13:13):
read this thing, it was kind ofan interesting take on
procrastination, it said thatpeople that procrastinate, are
actually very productive.
They're just very productive ofthe wrong things. And so like, I
thought about that with myself,like, when I procrastinate,
like, Yes, I didn't get done,when I planned on getting done.
(13:34):
But I gave watch, like, sixseasons of, you know, the office
stuff. And like, and it soundsgoofy, but like, if you think
about it, like, and I've donethis with my coding too,
because, like, I do a lot oflike just side programming
projects that are not it reallyjust for fun. And, um, I've
(13:56):
like, there's one project rightnow that we're working on for
the last four months. Um, and Iended up just working on that,
when I should have been doingother things, you know, but the
result is that I'm almost donewith this thing. It's really
awesome. So it's actually goingto help with with my business.
(14:17):
So it is really things whereit's like, you can be kind of
strategic with yourprocrastination and find things
that will benefit you and usethose things as like what you
are just tracking yourself with,you know, I'm least that's what
I found. But yeah, you're right,the whole like he asked yourself
(14:40):
about, like the procrastinationthing and scheduling thing
appropriately. I've done thattoo. I've absolutely done that.
You know,well and going back to being
honest and like saying no topeople, when you so this year,
have you started to say no toprojects and or people and when
you have what what's kind ofWhat'd you say?
(15:01):
Well, no, I haven't yet started.
And we're only 10 days into theyear. And actually, I actually
just, at the end of last week, Itold someone, I'd send them a
proposal for a project that Ireally shouldn't be doing.
Because it's, it's very small,and it's not something like I
normally do. And it's thoselittle tiny projects, like,
(15:24):
little tiny projects that Idon't normally do that eat up
all my time, you know, becauseit's stuff that it doesn't fit
within my model of business. Andso I have to, like, kind of
spend more time on it and stufflike that. But, um, but no, I
haven't started that yet. Andlike, I will say that, like, I
(15:45):
have turned down people in thepast. Like, it's not like I've
never said no, but the difficultthing about saying no, is, and
this is why I don't do it veryoften, is I want to feel like
they're taken care of, in someway. Right? And so I like to try
to find people I can referbusiness to, and quite honestly,
(16:07):
like, that has become more andmore difficult for me, because a
lot of folks that that I want tosend work to, they say no, for
the same reasons that I wouldsay no, you know, and so it's
kind of like a, you know, oh, itwas client's budget is too
small, or this is not the typeof work that I would normally
(16:30):
do, or, or whatever, um, when Isend it out to another
consultant or anotherfreelancer, it's the same
reasons. Like, they don't wantto take the client either, you
know, and it's hard to say no,in situations like that, because
I feel like, I'm not reallyhelping them too much, you know,
helping the business owner or,or the client. Um, so that's
(16:55):
difficult, you know, like, youknow, you kind of get over that
a little bit, you know, it'snot, you know, you are not, I
guess, like, I guess we had toremind myself a while is that,
like, these are really not yourproblems, you know, I hate to
say it like that, but, like,really like, like, they're not
like, you want to help people,but at the end of the day, but
(17:17):
you know, they need to, likeincrease their budget, or they
need to have a more time foryou, you know, like, I had a
client last couple weeks ago,that, you know, doing an audit
for him, he wants the audit donein like, a week, and I'm like,
I'll do my best, you know, butit's not going to get done in a
(17:40):
week, you know? And that's onthem. Like their schedule has to
be more flexible. So yeah, Imean, it is difficult to say no,
for a lot of reasons, but itdoes help everyone else in the
long run. You know?
Yeah, I think that comes back towhat you were saying earlier,
like, it's detrimental sometimesto say yes. And that makes me
(18:01):
think about. So my, one of myaunts runs an organizing
business. And I've helped her inthe past with SEO, and just some
website stuff. And she reallywanted to kind of this year, do
a retainer, and I just don'thave the bandwidth, because it's
a small project, but it's myaunt, you know, like, so I've
never know. And I did a projectfor her, I think last fall, and
(18:26):
it was like, really rushed. AndI feel like it wasn't very good,
but she was happy. So anyway,um, finally, she sent me an
email, I think it was last weekor the week before where she was
like, Look, I need help. Soeither, are you going to help me
or I'm going to find someoneelse like not mean, but just, I
really this was. And so Ireferred her to one of my
(18:48):
friends that I knew could takeit on and, and I trusted my
friend, but I feel likeprotective of her like, she's my
aunt, respect. It's not yourfamily member. I've had times in
the past where it's a reallysmall business owner. And you
can tell that they're justreally naive and don't know what
they want, really don't wantthem to get taken advantage of
(19:10):
by wanting those huge agenciesthat are going to overcharge
them and not really do goodwork. And so it's taking
everything i i have to not askmy friend if she's working with
my aunt or like not be involved.
Because I really want to go tomy aunt and say, Look, if you're
not going to work with Danielle,then you need to tell me who
you're talking to. So I can tellyou if they're bad, but that's
(19:32):
making me involved in theproject and my aunt's not, you
know, a dumb person, she'ssmart. She knows like the basics
of how SEO works. So I knowshe'll be okay, but I totally
get you in the point of like,it's so hard to say no sometimes
because for a lot of reasons,but you feel kind of protective
too and and it just makes ithard. I think like especially
(19:53):
when there's a lot of peoplethat will say yes, but it's for
they're not going to do theirpart
Yeah, so that's the same, like,I actually had that same thing
happen with my aunt, my aunt hadthe same issue. And it was a
friend of hers was starting thebusiness. And she wanted me to
(20:13):
help them with SEO. And ofcourse, you know, because my
aunt was involved in it, mymother was involved in it to,
not not involved in thebusiness, but involved in
knowing that I was helping myhead. And so because of that,
like, it got even stickierbecause like, you know, I can
(20:35):
charge them, because what am Igonna do charge my ad, and then
then, then then the budget iscriticized by my mother, you
know, it just gets sticky. So,uh, so I ended up giving this
like, small project for them,but honestly, the result of the
whole thing was just me advisethem not to do SEO, because I
(20:59):
did a competitive analysis forthem. And I was, like, look,
like to get started, just to getstarted, that's, you know, you
need like, five to 10 grand, youknow, you don't have that. So
you can't do it, you know, um,and I think like, that was my
expert opinion. It took me like,a few days to figure that out.
(21:23):
And, of course, it wasn't goodenough, because my mother came
back to me. And she says, Don'tbe so negative, you know, don't
be so just guaranteed to yourad. But it's like, Mom, that's
my, that was my professionalopinion. And, you know, like,
and so, you know, that was notgood. And I think that, like you
said that, like, there are smallbusiness owners that you come
(21:47):
across, that, you know, like,you know, that if you say no to
them, he turned them away,they're going to find some small
outfit, that doesn't charge verymuch money, that just takes
their money and runs, you know,but doesn't do very much good
work. And you feel bad aboutthat. And that was really what I
was trying to, I was trying tonegate with my aunt was like,
(22:10):
Hey, listen, if you go to acompany, and they're not going
to charge you like, three 5000 amonth, that are ripping you off,
like so don't, don't focus on,you know, these really cheap,
SEO alpha, it's because they'renot gonna be doing good work for
you, you know, I'm here to tellyou, like, you're not ready yet
for that. So it was it was, youknow, kind of a situation where
(22:34):
I felt like I was helping her,but I really should not have
been even, you know, doing that,because it took up a ton of
time. And it's not something Inormally do. Um, it took up a
ton of time. And it was it wassomething I wanted to say no to,
you know, and it's funny tolike, talk to my family. Like,
I'm sure you get this all thetime, Kelsey, like, do you get
(22:56):
people to come to you and saythings like, like, Hey, can you
help me with my Facebook? Orsomething soon as like,
completely unrelated to what youdo? And you're like, well,
that's not what I do. That's notlike, you know, when I do that's
not my specialty. Like, andthey're like, look at you like,
Well, why not? Like, come on?
Like, you do this somuch attack, you should just not
(23:20):
do everything in tech.
Yeah. Yeah. And so like, I haveone of my mother's friends
actually asked me what sheshould name her Facebook page
for her business. And I waslike, I don't I don't know who
like what's maybe your business?
Just use that. You know? It'sjust like, Oh, yeah. Okay. I was
(23:43):
like, Yeah, I mean, I don'tknow. Like, I'm not a Facebook
guy, you know, um, and eventhought, like I can, I can
recommend you to a Facebookperson, but never charge you a
ton of money. You know. So, youknow, it is difficult to say no
to people like that. That'sfine. The hardest people say go
(24:04):
to the people, the people youcare about, even when they're
attached to you in some way, youknow? Yeah, definitely.
Yeah, like friends or family.
And that even goes beyond work.
Right? Like, I don't know if youstruggled with this, but like
saying no to friends or familythat want to do something like I
(24:25):
had, oh, like a couple weeksago. So in Kansas City, there's
this thing called the plazalights. And there's this
district in Kansas City whereall the buildings look like
they're in Spain. So all theselike Spanish brick buildings,
and they line all the buildingsin the whole district with
lights and it's really awesome.
So I wanted to go and you go,and there's like restaurants and
so I wanted to go, maybe go eatat a restaurant and walk around.
(24:48):
So I asked my friends to go andI was on a meeting like I asked
the question then I got on ameeting well, but by the time I
was back, suddenly they haddecided that we're going to
lunch instead. And I got so madbecause I'm like, the whole
reason I texted you is to seethe dumb lights that don't come
on till 5pm at night. So Iprobably apply the best way. But
(25:10):
I was like, I'm not going tobrunch. Because last year, I
realized I had some foodallergies. So I have to avoid
like eggs, green, and mostlydairy, all the good cornerstones
of brunch. So I went tangent,and I'm like, Well, I'm not
going to brunch. I don't likebrunch. And they had picked this
really fancy place. And I'mlike, I'm not going to pay $30
for like, some sausage, becausethat's all I can. And I just
(25:33):
said, I'm not going. I set it inlike a little bit of a better
way. I probably sound a littlebratty. But I was like, I don't
want to go to brunch, I justwant to see the light. Like,
hello. But that was an exampleof like, a recent sticky
situation where I'm like, I'mgood. Like, that's not what I
want. And I think, I don't know,I feel like with COVID it has
(25:53):
kind of changed my perspectiveon like, how I spend my time. So
I these friends are good enoughfriends of mine where I can say
like, I don't want to do that.
And it's okay. And I just seekto surround myself with people
where I can be like, Hey, Idon't really feel like going,
either. I don't feel well, or Ijust don't want to go.
(26:15):
Yeah, I wonder if I wonderthat's a good thing to think
about. Like, I wonder if COVIDhas helped people say no more
often, you know, like insituations like that, but their
social situation. Definitely,like for me with the business
side of it. It kind of screws meup, I say yes, more often making
the COVID. But I'm like you, Iactually do not really have any
(26:40):
friends. So I don't like havethese weird social, like things
I have in the past, like a bluemoon, a friend who asked me to
go do something where I justreally don't want to do um, and
then I'll be like, you know,like, I don't want to do that or
whatever. But I know normally Idon't really go out that much at
(27:01):
all. Really? I have that issuewith my family a lot though.
Like my sisters will ask me togo do stuff with them. And I
just don't want to, you know,um, like last night? Exactly,
exactly. Like, last night, theywanted me to go eat dinner at
their house, and I didn't wantto. And they were like, okay,
whatever, you know, and so I cansee how that is. But the social
(27:25):
social obligations, do you feelweird to say no to you? No. But
I, you're right, though, thepandemic is gonna like, I think,
adjusted everybody'sexpectations, you know, and
change people a lot. And I thinkit's more acceptable now to say
no, It's situations like that,you know, but that is so cool,
(27:46):
though, that you get saying no,like, you set boundaries for
yourself, you know? And, uh, youwere like, No, I'm not gonna do
that. Because, like, I don'twant to make myself sick. And
because I want to see spiritslights, you know, so that's
like, that's really impressive.
Yeah, thank you. Well, I feltlike they weren't listening to
(28:07):
me too. And that's, that'sanother podcast in itself. But
I'm like, that's all I said Iwanted to do and then it
evolved. And I told them thatand we had a good discussion
about it. Butyeah, I mean, like, that's
something to like, like, quit,um, I quit. Well, I got like, a,
like, five years ago, I gotsober. And so that's really
like, I'll be friends. Becausemost of my friends used to drink
(28:29):
a lot or they still drink a lot.
And they you know, other things,too, and I got added that whole
scene. Um, and that took a whileto readjust everyone's
expectations of me because theywere like, yeah, come on, do
(28:50):
this with me. Come on, do thisthat you know, and I'd be like
no looking to do that, you know,he just wasn't right for me
anymore. And so that changedthings a lot. But yeah, I went
through that whole thing likesetting up your own personal
boundaries for what you know isright for you, you know, both
(29:11):
like on an emotional level butthen also just on a realistic
kind of level of the life youwant to live you know,
I love that I'm and that mightbe a good like, thing to close
out. The podcast is like,setting boundaries, either with
yourself when it comes to work,or your friends. I mean, what
(29:32):
kind of things are you thinkingabout when you're going to do
that, you know, this year thatmight help someone else?
So I know that we talked earlierabout this is not supposed to be
a professional podcast. But Ithink that I don't really have a
life outside my work. So I willsay though, for a start setting
(29:56):
boundaries. I've read this booka long time. Well, not long time
ago, but a few years ago, I readthis book, and it's recommended
by a lot of business people.
It's called the E Myth. And heread that Kelsey,
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