Aug 16, 2022
Get my weekly business tips / newsletter here
Take a dive into the meaning behind the name, "No Mercy Business Podcast," and how I felt God compelled me to create something beautiful out of something that can seem so cold and empty.
Then, lets talk about setting boundaries and how my lack of empathy has helped my clients to protect their home life, work hours and thrive.
Emily: (00:00)
Welcome to the no mercy business coaching podcast with Emily, a
Woodruff, the podcast that walks you through managing your own
small business through the highs and the lows. We'll talk with
small business owners from all over the us and share insights on
how to help manage your business without the extra fluff and
connect with other women. Just like you. Let's dive in.
Emily: (00:33)
Hey everyone, it's Emily, you are host. I am so thankful that you
are here with me today. I can't wait to dig into this week's topic.
I think that you're gonna like this one. So the, the purpose of
this podcast is to just be able to share my experiences and share
my interactions and, um, you know, some things that I've learned
along the way I've owned my own business for about 10 years, a
little bit longer than 10 years now. Um, I have my bachelor's
degree in business administration. I have subsequent degrees in
liberal arts, business management, um, office professionalism,
office management. I have subsequent certificates that go along
with it. Um, and I have been in the business world. I feel like my
entire life, my, my mom was a business person. She had a team of,
you know, 20 people below her, almost my entire life until I was
like 25.
Emily: (01:36)
Um, my dad had always worked in offices. They both were very
committed to their jobs, very committed to their, their employers,
very committed to making sure that they did well in their business,
that they did well and thrived in their endeavors, wherever they
were at. My mom worked for the same company for I think, 27 years
or something like that, which is a heck of a long time . Um, and my
dad, he worked at a couple different ones, different places, but
everywhere that he went, he went head first. He dove in and he was
all there. He was a hundred percent in, he didn't hold anything
back and he, he cared about his clients. He cared about his
coworkers. He cared about his employer. He, he gave way more than
he probably ever should have, but that's a, that's an episode for a
whole different day.
Emily: (02:35)
Um, I, all of this, just to say that the business world has been
around me my entire life. Um, my parents were not service workers
or trade workers. They, you know, it just, it just has kind of
surrounded me forever. And it's something that I feel like I am
extrinsically gifted in. I feel, feel like God has blessed me with
the spiritual gift of administration. Um, and I never really
thought too much about that until the last couple years. Um,
administration is a weird spiritual gift and we're gonna go down
this road for a little bit. Um, it's a weird spiritual gift because
it is something that you can learn and it's something that you can
just be good at. But for me, I started to realize I've always known
that administration was one of my spiritual gifts because I'm
weirdly good at administrative things.
Emily: (03:34)
Um, I always scout score super high on the spiritual gifts test or
the, you know, personality test, anything that has to do anything
that has to do with organization and, um, management. That is me
through and through to a T um, don't come in my house and open a
couple certain closets, cuz they will try to tell you lies about
me, but it's fine. It's like my Monica closet from friends. Um, I
have this one that's like under my stairs and it's just a, it's a
catch all and it's the bane of my existence, but that's that's
yeah. Anyway, so for spiritual gifts, I started to realize that for
me, this truly is a spiritual gift of mine because the way that I
can absorb information about completing certain types of tasks, the
way that I can apply them, the amount of stress that I can take on
and then still be confidently outputting the work.
Emily: (04:39)
There is no humanly way that I can do that on my own. There is no
way it has to come from some other force. It has to come from God.
And I started really tapping into that. Now that I am six years
into my, what I would call my career. I started realizing that some
of these things that I do it, my, my career, my job is very
seasonally based. So there are certain times of the year that we
are kind of slow. Um, it's in the construction realm. I don't wanna
give too many details I don't ever wanna have anyway. I'm not gonna
give too many details about my actual job, but it's in the
construction field. And um, so like most states, Michigan, we have
a construction season and we have winter in the winter. There's
very limited construction that can go on.
Emily: (05:39)
We can do lots of indoor things. We can do lots of, um, interior
renovations or working on case work or things like that, that
aren't weather pending. Um, in those months, my job is
significantly easier in the summertime. I will sometimes have
stacks of paper on my desk that are literally an inch thick of
things that I have to do that day. My job is very dependent on new
jobs starting. I anyway, I get to a point where there are so many
things going on. I feel like I can't blink at my job. There's too
many tasks. I hand there's too many things to do. And I started, I
started thinking about it more and it's, I always get them done and
I always get them done well. And I always do the things that I need
to do. And then still have time for more.
Emily: (06:41)
I still have the ability to take on more. I still am able to do it
with a smile most of the time. And I, I feel like that is just not
something that's me. It's not something that I have designed. It's
not something that I have put the effort into. Sometimes I amaze
myself with the amount of things that I'm able to accomplish in one
day. And I have to just say, man, that was God that had to be God,
because none of that was me, the way that I'm able to work with
certain types of clients or certain, you know, subs of ours, it's,
it's God breathed. So I started just really wanting to tap into
that. And so realizing that my ability to do these things comes
from God is really ground shaking for me. Um, I don't come from a
Christian background.
Emily: (07:44)
I don't come from an entrepreneur background. I, as a kid,
everything I did was, was my doings. You know, it was all from me.
So being able to take, take a hard look at my life and, and realize
that something has happened outside of my doing that took a lot for
me. It took a lot for me to truly surrender that to God. And to say
that I understand that this is something from him. And to when I
say surrender that I think that, I mean surrender myself and all of
the good that I have done and all of the work that I had put into
things and really turning that over to him and, and giving him the
glory for it. Instead of me, I'm, I'm just, I've just been his
vessel. I've just been the one that he has led me to make these
decisions in my life.
Emily: (08:47)
And he has led me to, to continue down this path and I going
through that was really eye-opening for me. So if that's something
that you have also faced or something that maybe you're in the
thick of right now, I would love to chat more with you about it.
Um, I would love to hear where you're at or where you feel that God
is pulling you. If you're somebody who doesn't know God, I would
love to talk to you about that too. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna
try to sell him to you, but I would love to know how you run your
business and how you manage your day to day. And, and just take a
look at how, how things are for you. I would love to try to work
with you and, and tap into some of that with you. So if that's you
send me an email, check out my website, say something on Facebook,
I'm always around. I would love to just chat.
Emily: (09:46)
So since we're talking about spiritual gifts, I should probably
tell you the opposite side of my test too. And that is that every
single test that I take, the lowest score that I get, the lowest
spiritual gift that I am ranked with is mercy. And that is how this
podcast was born. I am known in my friend circle. And then in my,
my business life, I'm pretty much known everywhere that I go for
being somebody who's very forward. Who's very direct. Who's very
open and willing to tell you what I think and willing to share what
I think that God thinks.
Emily: (10:33)
Some people will call that mercy list. just call it real straight.
um, you can take that how you want to, but so, so anyway, that's
where, that's where the name of this podcast came from. And it's
just the idea that if you are gonna work with somebody, you want to
know that they're not gonna give you bull crap. They're not gonna
feed you lies. They're not gonna just feed into your ego and tell
you, Hey, yeah, that sounds great. Or I know that you've been
trying this for six months and nothing has changed, but let's just
keep doing it. Cuz that seems like, seems like where're
comfortable. I'm not that person. I'm not your coach. I'm not your
ally. If you want somebody to just keep telling you to keep doing
what you're doing and continue to see you fail. We're not the
match.
Emily: (11:24)
We are not a match for each other. One of my strengths is being
able to be objective and to look at things without , without my
friend glasses on, without my, you know, my connection to you
getting in the way I'm very talented. I'll say that very talented
in being able to just take a situation and dissect it and remove
myself completely from it. So this is something that I thought that
I, I could play on and I could work with other people. Um, so now
that we've kind of established that I wanna talk to you about
setting boundaries.
Emily: (12:04)
I wanna talk to you about setting boundaries in your business,
setting boundaries in your personal life, setting boundaries in
your hours, worked in the way that you respond on social media. All
of it. I hope you're here for it today, man. So if you've been an
entrepreneur for long, you know that it's very easy to let your
business consume your days and your nights and your weekends and
your holidays and your everything. If you don't set boundaries,
something that's very important to do from the very beginning is to
set work hours. Something that's even more important is to abide by
them. If you gave up your nine to five, because you didn't like
working for somebody or because you wanted to have an 11 to seven,
make sure that you're committing to that, your spouse, your
children, your friends, your family, they deserve that from
you.
Emily: (13:01)
They, they deserve to know that you have consistency. You deserve
to know what hours of the day you are expected to work and show up
and be on it, to be on your game. It's a difficult way to live your
life. If you wake up at different times every single day, if you go
to bed at different times, every single day, if you take meetings
at 9:00 PM, but your out of office time stopped at 4:00 PM. That
doesn't, that doesn't speak well of your time management skills.
You have every right in the world to be able to say, no, I'm super
sorry. That time doesn't work for me. I would love to meet you
sometime between this time and this time, please let me know what
works for you. And almost always they'll have a time that works.
People are so afraid of stepping on each other's toes and, and I
think missing an opportunity by standing up for themselves. But I
find that if somebody responds to me and says, no, this doesn't
really fit within my needs list or my wants list. I'm more drawn to
them because they know what they want. They know what they're after
they respect themselves enough to have a schedule, to have some
boundaries and to man maintain them.
Emily: (14:23)
I think it's incredibly important for our mental health, for our
ability to manage our own personal lives for our ability to commit
to things, our ability to just really be present in the best way
possible for us to stick to our own boundaries, to stick to our own
schedules. I mentioned that I have a, a regular job and I also do
this and I'm also a virtual assistant. So for my virtual assistant
job, I have very clear cut hours that I will work. And I also make
it very clear that if anything changes, I'm at Liberty to say, I'm
not working tonight. I have, um, a stepson that comes back and
forth every other week. And I tell the person that I'm an assistant
for. Hey, the weeks that my stepson's with me, my, my family is the
most important thing. So if I'm cooking dinner or if he needs help
with his homework, or we just have to do something as a family, or
we get to do something as a family that comes before my third job
every day.
Emily: (15:39)
And she's really understanding with it as long as I am
communicating with her. And I'm, you know, if I'm getting the tasks
done and giving her enough time to know that, Hey, you just can't
send something to me tonight and need it done tonight because I
have a prior commitment to my family. It works really well. um, I
know that not every single situation can work that way, but it, it
works really well for me. And I have, I feel like I have mastered
the ability to say here's the things that I want. Here's the things
that I need. If you aren't willing to commit to that with me, I'm
not willing to give you my time. My time is more valuable to me
than making this extra money with you or doing this extra thing for
you or whatever it is. What, what have you, you know, I feel like
it's something that can be translated into a lot of parts of our
lives, but I was originally thinking that we were gonna dive into
this whole episode about setting boundaries and just solve it all
in one , but I should have known that that is just not even
remotely possible.
Emily: (16:56)
So today I think that we are just gonna end with time constraints
and being true to yourself and your schedule and setting up,
setting up a schedule for you to stick to and setting up something
that's realistic and making sure that it's part of it's that it's
advertised on your website, that it's advertised in your emails.
Something that I learned really recently, and that I really love,
not that I learned it recently, but I adapted it recently is when I
have an upcoming day out of the office, I put it in my emails so
that if the people that I'm working with, if they, if they email me
a week before I go, they get a little reminder without me saying,
Hey, I'm gonna be outta the office. It just says my name, my
regular signature. And then it says upcoming out of office
days.
Emily: (17:50)
And here's where they're listed. Then when I'm gone, I have a, I
have a response, an autoresponder that says, Hey, thank you so much
for your email. I am out of the office. I am refueling my creative
juices or, you know, whatever I put in there, I'm gone. I am not
checking my phone. I'm not checking my computer. I'm so thankful
for your message, because that gives me something to do when I come
back and thanks to you now, I have something to come back to and
it's really fun. And it makes to me like, it makes the sender feel
like they aren't bothering you so much. And like, maybe that
they've even done something good for you. So that's just a little
tiny tip of time. Time management that I think is also overplayed
by people, especially entrepreneurs who already struggle with
feeling like they can't take a vacation and they can't leave and
they can't ever set time away from their business because they're
doing it on their own. You can, you absolutely can. So we will dig
into more about boundaries and maintaining them in our next
episode, I look forward to chatting with you there. Talk to you
later. Thanks for listening to the no mercy business coaching and
consulting podcast. With Emily, a Woodruff, we specialize in
branding and design for women by women.
Get
my weekly business tips / newsletter here
Transcribed by Otter.ai