Today’s Guest

Table of Contents

I’m back with another co-hosted episode with the fabulous Jo Casey!

Today, we talk about the importance of resilience in business and why we think it’s a vital skill to develop if you truly want to succeed as an entrepreneur. This is a part of the shadow side of business that people don’t really talk about, but it’s one of Jo’s specialties, and it’s so, so important. We hope you enjoy this episode!

About Jo Casey

Jo Casey has over 20 years experience of working as a trainer and consultant in the corporate, public and third sectors. Her flashy clients and workplaces have included Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PWC), The NHS, BT, Toyota Motors, Peugeot Business School, The Welsh Assembly Government, The Girl Guides UK, Vets4Pets/Companion Care, several Local Government Authorities, and The Department Of Work And Pensions. But she’s also worked with many no less wonderful smaller ventures, micro businesses and SMEs.

She’s a self-confessed nerd and has taught at college and university levels and is a visiting lecturer at the University of Chester. Jo has a Masters Degree in Coaching and Organizational Development and she’s an NLP Master Practitioner, MBTI qualified professional certified Emotional Intelligence EQi 2.0 consultant.

She’s been coaching for over 15 years now – clocking up over 1000 hours of coaching experience. Basically, she carefully treads that line between being passionate and a tiny bit obsessive about what she does (obsession often wins). Jo runs accredited coach training programs and coaches people from all over the world via the power of the internet.

Listen to this episode

What You’ll Learn

What is resilience and why it’s important
What purpose does resilience serve?
How to build resilience if it doesn’t come naturally to you
The difference between a growth vs a fixed mindset
How to pick yourself up after what feels like a failure
The key questions you need to ask to come back from “failure”
How to reframe the “failures” in your business

Things We Discussed

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Transcript

The transcript for this episode can also be downloaded here (no opt-in required).

Holly: Hello and welcome to the Business Mindset Podcast, episode 220. This is your host Holly Worton and I am back with another fabulous co-hosted episode with Jo Casey. I am super-excited about this episode because I think this is a topic that is really, really important; and I think it is something that we as entrepreneurs don’t necessarily talk about enough.

So, today we are going to talk about the importance of resilience in business; and why we think it is a vital skill to develop if you truly want to succeed as an entrepreneur. This is part of the shadow side of business, something that people don’t really talk about, and it is one of Jo’s specialities, and it is something I have kind of resisted for a while, which we are going to talk about in this episode and why I now think it is so, so important to talk about this. So, I really hope you enjoy this episode.

What we are going to talk about today is:

Resilience and why it is important;
We are going to learn what purpose does resilience serve;
How to build resilience if it doesn’t come naturally to you;
We are going to talk about the difference between a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset;
We are going to talk about how to pick yourself up after what feels like a failure;
We are going to look at the key questions you need to ask, so that you can come back from “failure” – and you can’t see it but I am doing air quotes around that – because there is really no such thing as failure which we talk about in this episode.
We are going to talk about how to reframe the “failures” in your business.

So, as I said I think this is a really, really important topic; I really look forward to sharing this with you, please give us your feedback, I hope you enjoy this episode and now on to the show.

Jo: Hi everybody, welcome! This is our monthly joint podcast: it is Jo Casey and Holly Worton. Hi Holly!

Holly: Hello!

Jo: And today, we are going to be talking about a subject which is a big nerd topic for me – so beware – and that’s about resilience in business. First of all, what is resilience: what do we mean by it and why? Certainly in my opinion, and I think Holly is in agreement with this, why it is the core differentiator of the people who are successful in business over time, and those that kind of fall by the wayside. So, Holly, do you want to kind of fill us in about how we kind of landed on this topic?

Holly: Yes, well, it is something that I have been thinking about a lot lately; and I know, I remember from back when you were doing your work happy days recently, this was a big topic for you. And I remember it was a word that never really resonated with me, and I don’t know why, I just always thought: what is the big deal with resilience? But, I am a very resilient person. So, it is strange that I was so resistant to it, but it is something that I have been thinking a lot about lately, just because I see people in business who are really struggling and don’t realise that you have just got to kind of push through the blocks to get to the easy bits; and don’t realise how many ups and downs there are in business. And then I came across that interview with Marie Forleo from a few years back, which talks about how she was just building her mailing list and sending out newsletters for eight years, until she really started making money with her business; because she had a job on the side – actually her job was her main thing and the business was on the side. And that was kind of the big thing that really brought up the concept of resilience in my head; because she was going at it for eight years, running her business on the side, before she started making big money. And she was just showing up consistently, and then it happened, and then she decided to make the switch from business as a part-time thing to business as the main thing.

Jo: I love that story about Marie Forleo, because I think it is really illuminating to people, and it is a really nice antidote to the instant-six-figure-business message which is used by a lot of people who are marketing how to set up a business to people. And, one of the things that certainly I have noticed over the years, working with people who are at the beginning stages of their business, is that it is really easy to think that the bumps in the road are disasters rather than just being part of the process.

Holly: Yes!

Jo: And I think the more that you can…and this isn’t about saying: don’t follow your dreams! It is more about saying: it can be hard work to go to your dreams. I remember really distinctly, this must be I don’t know four/five years ago, I really didn’t have any traction in my business at all and I hired Kate Courageous, Kate Swoboda, from the Courageous Living Coaching Program that she does now. At the time, you could hire Kate for a one-off consultancy session and it was like 90 minutes and she did a website review and stuff like that. I got so much out of it – it was absolutely fantastic – but the thing that stuck with me, and I still think back to, is Kate had just…Kate had been in business already for six or seven years, by the time I came across her; and she had just been named as one of the, I think, top 50 or top 100 personal development businesses, she was up there with Daniele LaPorte, she was on the list with some really big businesses. She said: do you know the thing is, what’s so amazing and you don’t believe at the time, is the only difference with those people is that they kept going. The only reason that I am successful, whereas twenty other coaches that started at that same time as me have gone by the wayside, is that I have kept going; and a lot of this is just keeping going. And that stuck with me so much, because that has been my mantra every time somethings goes wrong. Every time I try something and it doesn’t work, I go: okay, pick yourself up and keep going. And that’s a common thing that I have noticed among my peers that are “successful”, the people who are making it as a business, the people who are doing it full time; the people who are at six figures, or getting towards six-figures, or have just have a sustainable business, is they also have that ability to – not have the golden touch in that everything goes brilliantly every time – but when the things don’t go right, when you are facing disappointment, I mean Holly you and I did a three-week launch for a course!

Holly: I know {laughing}

Jo: And I share that story with my people and my clients now and they go: oh my goodness I would be devastated. Yeah it hurt but…

Holly: It wasn’t that bad!

Jo: Yeah, we picked ourselves up probably the next day and went: right, okay, that didn’t work. We were onto the next thing… And you have to because you are going to fail. That’s not just negative talk, you will if you are trying stuff.

Holly: Yeah. If you are just sitting at home not doing anything then that’s another thing; but if you are putting stuff out there some of its going to fail, and that’s how you tweak things to get them right. One of the things we did talk about, we got on Skype, we had a call to discuss: what did we think didn’t work about it? We had a call about why we thought it didn’t work, and then you went onto to launch the SuperNova Collective and that was wildly successful, that was the right thing. There are so many factors, and you have really got to be willing to look at and analyse why something might not have worked so that you can tweak it and then relaunch and do something differently.

Jo: And as we were doing our little pre-recording chat about the sorts of things we are going to cover, you made the brilliant point about fixed mindset, or growth mindset. So is it worth talking a little bit about threat for people who maybe aren’t familiar with the concept? Because I think it is so key, it is so important.

Holly: Yes I think it is. It is something that I really took for granted because being in this online, entrepreneurial world, pretty much everyone I know has a growth mindset, which means they are looking at where things are going right, where things are going wrong, things that they can improve. They are always looking to tweak and improve and get up to the next level with something so that they can grow, rather than being stuck in their ways. It was something I had taken for granted because the vast majority of people in my life are like that.

Jo: You are so lucky.

Holly: I know!

Jo: {laughing}There are people in my life are not like that…

Holly: Oh really!

Jo: I think it is a fair mix, but I do know that when I first got into personal development, which is getting on for 17 years ago now, when I first did my first coaching course and things like that it was like: woah these people think completely differently to how my friends do, or work colleagues do. And that was a real eye-opener, and I think took me a bit of time to kind of wrap my head around; and it was only when I went and did my first NLP training that one of the presuppositions in NLP is: there is no failure, there is only feedback.

Holly: I love that so much.

Jo: It just kind of blew a hole in mind and I thought: if I had known that when I was a kid when I was you know being really hard on myself and things – not that my parents were really hard on me at all – I just hadn’t learnt that concept it was totally new to me. And, it totally changed the way I viewed pretty much everything. And that’s what helped open up this idea of a growth mindset to me. To the point where, those day cals that you can get that you put on your wall – they are like big stickers that you put on your failure…

Holly: Oh yes.

Jo: I had on my dining wall for a number of years, I had: no failure, only feedback.

Holly: Oh I love that.

Jo: In bright orange letters because I wanted my son to really get this message; and then I can remember him coming with one of his friends and his friend saying: what’s that on the wall? He just went: oh I don’t know, just something stupid that my mum is into!

Holly: {laughing} You were like: well he really got that message, didn’t he?

Jo: Oh, it really soaked in! {laughing} But, hopefully subliminally on some level it helps. Because I think fundamentally it is really easy to get ourselves boxed in to: well that failed, I am a failure. I did that with my first coaching business. For those of you who don’t knowThis story: I started a coaching business 17 years ago, when my son was tiny, and I was a single parent. And in hindsight, that was a terrible idea; not starting a coaching business, but I quit my job as well.

Holly: Yeah, the timing wasn’t right.

Jo: The timing was awful, because I was just getting to grips with coaching, which I was in love with and thought was amazing, but I had no clue how to run a business, I had no clue how to market, I didn’t have lots of the elements in place and so sometimes like that phrase: it is like trying to learn how to cycle, whilst learning how to unicycle: it is a lot..there is a lot going on! You are learning how to coach and you are learning to run a business and I was a single parent with a baby. And, it is not really that surprising that after, I think about nine months, I was in debt, I had to go cap in hand to my dad; they borrowed some money so that I could pay off some debt, I got a job to pay them back. And, mentally, I had a belief then: that that was a failure; that I am not the kind of person that can run a business. And it was only several years later, when I got my NLP training, that I got this concept: that there is no failure, there is only feedback, so what could I learn from that? In the meantime, I hadn’t stopped coaching, I was still coaching anyone who would let me, you know when you are in that phase..?

Holly: Yeah.

Jo: And I was able to unpick that quite fixed belief around it and then eventually started another business, and here I am now. That kind of very fixed idea: it is a failure… it is so definite, it is so rigid, there is no manoeuvring around it, it is a dead end once you hit that point: that was a failure.

Holly: Yeah, and I think that’s really important what you said about telling yourself that story, and forming that belief, that you are a failure, rather than looking at: what can I learn from this situation? Because if you look at everything as a learning situation, even if it was bad, even if it hurt, even if it feels negative; if you look at it from: what can I learn from this? That just immediately turns it on its head and gives you really useful feedback on how to improve, how to do things differently, how to do things right the next time.

Jo: Yeah, I see this come up, you must see this with your clients as well, the clients who struggle the most are the ones that haven’t quite got this idea that you are going to fail. And so, take it as some terrible sign from the universe that means they are not cut out for this; when, actually, failing is a part of this; in my Super Nova Collective, my group program, and in my Facebook group, we have a Friday failure thread where I invite people to share their failures, because if you are not failing your are not doing enough.

Holly: Yeah.

Jo: And I “fail” on a very regular basis and I become much better at handling it, but that’s not to say that it doesn’t hurt.

Holly: Yeah. Well, I told you this story before we started recording, about how last year I released a bunch of books, one of my first books was: Alone on the South Downs Way, talking about a very deep personal experience of walking a 100-mile trail. And, last week, I happened to go onto Amazon and thought: oh, I haven’t checked my reviews in a while. And I found this new 1• review of my book which was absolutely scathing, this woman absolutely hated the book and it really, really hurt. It was like a punch in the gut, it was just: ah, it just hit me. And about the same time, it was the same evening I saw that review, I was about to get ready to release the file of my next book to my formatter, and my type-setter, and get that ready to go out. After I read that book I thought: oh shit I should read through the book one more time and make sure it is not any of the horrible things that this woman said about my book in the review. And then I thought: no, no, this is my story, I can’t alter my story based on people’s criticism. So, I put it out, but I think it can be really easy for people to think: oh, this person gave me a bad review, so therefore my story is wrong, or I am wrong, or I need to change how I tell my story so that people don’t think that I am wrong, and bad, or whatever…

Jo: I have to say I am having to majorly manage some mama bear feelings right now, because I want to find these people and…

Holly: {laughing} Or you can just read my book and write a nice review of it…Same goes for everyone listening! Let’s just offset that 1• review. {laughing} No, no, no, I know what you mean, I put a comment on Facebook saying: why do I read my Amazon reviews, and then I immediately regretted it because I hate being negative on Facebook, I hate putting anything that’s like: oh poor me. Because I hate it when people do that, when you can tell people were fishing for compliments. But I was so genuinely hurt, I put that thing on Facebook and then like all my friends were: they have no right to hate, they had no idea, you had the guts to put your story out there…and I was like: oh yes that’s right, that’s right, thank you!

Jo: I think there is something about criticism, and somebody once said to me, I can’t remember who it was, but the best piece of advice about criticism, first work out: has that person earned the right to give you that feedback? So, first of all, is it someone I respect, I respect, that I think they are coming from a genuine perspective, or, are they just dumping their stuff into it? And I think, from what you are saying about those reviews that you had, that was their stuff. So, I did a quick, went and read them and thought: those people obviously didn’t understand what the book was for; they thought they were getting a totally different kind of book…one guy is very upset that you didn’t mention Winchester Cathedral.

Holly: Yes! Well, I did mention it, but I didn’t go inside it, because I didn’t really care…{laughing} And this person was obviously really very into Winchester Cathedral. So, what I did take away from that after, was that, and it would take me several days because every time I thought of it I would get that: ugh in my stomach. But now, about a week later since I have seen it, what I have realised is that I need to go back and look at those complaints, and criticisms, and then re-write the description of the book to make it really clear what this book is, and what the book isn’t. It is not a guide book. And I am pretty sure I do say that in the description, it is a personal journey, don’t expect long descriptions of interesting cultural and historical information, I just barely touch on that stuff, because it is not the focus of the book, it is the inner story. So I have learned now, in the weeks since I read those reviews, that I need to just reformat those descriptions to make it 100% clear what it is that I am selling, so that people know what they are expecting. So, that’s what I have taken from that, that’s my feedback.

Jo: Well I am impressed that it only took you a couple of days to get that, but seriously I have probably had times in my life where I have held onto a wound or a piece of criticism, or a piece of feedback, for way longer than a few days, because I think it is then about the story that we tell ourselves about it if we are not careful. You know, like my story of: well, I am not cut out to be a business owner, my coaching attempt was a failure. You could very easily go into: I am not tough enough to handle the criticism that comes with being a published author.

Holly: Yes.

Jo: Or, even worse than that, you could have taken it as a sign that you weren’t cut out for being an author, which is kind of a common way that I think we protect ourselves sometimes, from future criticism. Renee Brown talks about this, about being ‘in the arena’. If you are in the arena, you are some point going to get face down in the dirt and you have got to pick yourself up, if you are not even in the arena then you don’t get to criticise other people for being in the arena.

Holly: And that’s another thing: I never give one star reviews to things. I give three stars and up: if I really hated something, I really just don’t say anything at all. So, it was so incomprehensible to me that someone would spend their time writing such a scathing review of something when I never do that, I don’t waste my time on that, I promote the stuff that I love, and if I didn’t like it: oh well, I just don’t say anything.

Jo: Yes, there are some people who obviously had that spare ten minutes to write one star reviews…{laughing}

Holly: But that’s so important, because of course there was 30 seconds that went through my brain: oh my god I should take this book down, rewrite it and then make sure it is perfect before I put it back out again; and then I thought: no, because that’s altering my story; the truth of my story is the truth that I put out there. I did go through those few seconds where I was like: it is not good enough I better get rid of it. But, that’s picking yourself up and saying: no, there is something that I could learn from this, I can tweak the description, but I am not going to change my story, because my story was the truth of my story.

Jo: I think that is an important realisation to get to. I think there are people who maybe aren’t necessarily ready to be running a business; and then, there are people who, it is part of the journey, of building that resilience and we have all had to do it. I think, now, looking back on things that would have floored me a few years ago, I am just like: urgh and kind of get over it. But, there are still things now, that you kind of go: okay, it is just an awful lot of feedback that hurts a lot…but it is not a failure and I am going to have a glass of wine and eat some chocolate and tomorrow I will start again. Have you ever had an experience, Holly, where it did take you longer than a couple of days to bounce back? See, I am wondering if the word resilience didn’t jive with you because you are naturally just a pretty resilient person, but I am curious, have there been times when you did feel like: I don’t know if I am going to get the strength to pick myself up or even if I want to?

Holly: Yeah, I would say that I am a naturally resilient person based on things that I have experienced in the earlier phases of my life, where I had to be super-resilient to get through them; but, I am thinking, the other thing that comes to mind is that I have this video on YouTube which has over 50,000 views, and it is by far my most popular video, and it is on: How to Self Muscle Test. And it’s a controversial topic, so there are a lot of people with a lot of shitty comments on that video. And, YouTube is like such a mass market of viewers, that might be my ideal viewers, and might not be, so you get all these people on YouTube that don’t know you, and will say whatever they feel like. So, I have had a lot of people making really negative comments on that video, and a lot of really positive comments on that video, but I think it did, because I regularly get negative comments on that video, it has taken me a while to get to the point where I have really got the feedback, and it has sunk in, and I have re-written the description of the video to say: muscle testing is a technique which I think is really powerful, it works for me; if it works for you: great; if you think it is BS: great. You do what works for you, I totally get that, but I am not debating the validity of this technique. And, I got to the point where I could say that after having received many, many, many negative reviews. So, it took me a while to realise: that’s my boundary, I am not debating this; if you like it great, I made this video to help you, if you don’t like it, great, go somewhere else. But, that took me a while.

Jo: Part of me is going, why is that a whole controversial subject?

Holly: Well, it’s a bit woo, so. Woo, is just science we don’t understand yet. {laughing}

Jo: Now, you see, I can be down with that! {laughing}

Holly: I heard that on a podcast a few weeks ago, and I was like: that is my new mantra. {laughing}

Jo: I am taking that and running with it! {laughing} So, do you do anything in particular to help you get more resilient or bolster you resiliency? I am curious.

Holly: That’s a really good question! No, I don’t think I do. But, I think what I do when I hit those low points, and receive those comments from other people, something that I will do is call my MasterGut group and get perspective from them; or like I said I post it in my personal Facebook profile and it really was nice to hear everyone say nice things to me, after I had just been hurt by this review. So, I think getting feedback from other people, getting support from other people, it is really useful to me because sometimes I think it is easy to get stuck in your head and let this crap just brew around in this nasty soup, and you need some kind of positive stuff to come in, or a different perspective to come in, otherwise you get caught up in that negative soup.

Jo: We talk in my SuperNova collective, one of the concepts I talk about is: we can get stuck inside our own heads, too much, and so there is quite a bit of research into resiliency, what makes people resilient is a skill and a practice, you can develop it. And, one of the core components of it: people who are resilient, compared to people who aren’t, is that they have social support; so they feel that they are part of a community and that is not just people they can go to to get support, but there are people they can go and give support to as well. So, it is this real two-way thing. And I know, if I didn’t have people like you, if I didn’t have people like my Mastermind that I go to, if you didn’t have your Mastergut, then it would be a very, very different story. Even those little titbits, like Andrea Owen from your KickAss Life, she has been on my podcast a few times, and I have been on hers; she has a huge platform: well over a 100,000 Facebook likes and she is making over 6 figures, she has got a really, really good business and the first time that she told me, that the first few times she ran a course, it totally failed, it didn’t sell at all. And I was like: ahhh I didn’t know, because I had been making all of these assumptions, but even just having those stories and those different perspectives, and other people to help you get outside of your own head, and the stories that you tell yourself, it is really essential. I don’t just think it is important, I think it is essential, you have to have other people around you, you have to have a safe place where you can go and say: this really annoyed me or frustrated me, or: I want to burn the whole thing down today. And, I just think that is essential; I don’t know anybody who is running a successful business who doesn’t have some kind of group support of fellow travellers.

Holly: So, I think before we wrap this up there are a couple of things that we need to be explicit about, because I think it is useful to our listeners. What is resiliency? You have a great definition for it, that I think is really scientific, and useful.

Jo: Well, the original definition of resiliency, and different dictionaries will say it slightly differently, but more or less, it comes from physics, and it is the idea that a shape or an element or a material will retain its original shape even when put under intense pressure. So, if you take that to, expand it to, us humans, we are able to still perform at whatever level that we are at, even when we are under pressure. Whereas I know Holly and I like to tell you that running a business is all unicorns and lollipops and rainbows, haha; there is nothing like running your own business that will bring up all of your stuff. So, you don’t have a regular salary, you usually don’t have colleagues; you usually don’t have a boss telling you: do this, do that. {laughing} You are totally on your own, it is all up to you. That’s pressure. It is exciting, it is freedom, but that’s pressure.

And so resiliency is about how can you build up, almost like the muscular strength, the emotional muscular strength to be able to thrive under that pressure? And some of that pressure comes from the fact that there isn’t a blueprint, there isn’t an easy answer, and there will be times when something goes wrong, stuff hits the fan. You will get times when a client complains, or asks for a refund. No matter how you bend over backwards to be the most kind of giving, amazing business owner possible. It has happened to me. There will be times when you spend two months putting together a program and then it doesn’t sell. There will be times when the client doesn’t pay on time and you have to go and have that awkward conversation. There are times when people leave crappy reviews for you because they haven’t got better things to do on Amazon. There will be all these things and more that go on, and having that ability to switch from: urgh that hurts, to: what can I do about it? I think, is the biggest differentiator between people who can make a go of it, and people who can’t.

I had an incident with a client, I think late last year, or earlier this year who decided that she was going to launch a thing and it didn’t sell. And, she was really, really, downbeat about it, you know: this is rubbish, I am so annoyed; why didn’t anybody warn me about this? She was kind of in victim mode and I responded to her by saying: this is the game, you get to feel bad about this for a few days, but then at some point this week you need to pick yourself up and go: okay, what can I learn from this, what can I do differently next time? And I am somebody, I tend to coach from a place of fierce love, I do lots of nurturing and I do lots of handholding, but there are also times when you have to give people that feedback and kind of go: yes it hurts It hurts like hell, but you have to pick yourself up and you have to think: what can I do differently next time, what can I retrieve from this situation, what can I do? Because if you can’t do that, then honestly I don’t think you are ready to have a business.

Holly: I think that’s a really, really important point; and so that lead me to my last question, which is: what purpose does resilience serve?

Jo: I think resilience is, it gives us the strength to be able to be in this for the long term. If you haven’t got the strength, that ability to perform under the pressure of running your own business, or the willingness to get it; because as I say some of us are naturally resilient and some of us we have really had to learn it and work on it, yet it is possible, I am a testament to that. But, if you don’t have that then you are not going to have the strength to carry on for however long it is going to take you to build your business. And we have given the example of Marie Forleo and I taking her eight years, that doesn’t mean that it will take eight years for you. That doesn’t mean that it will take eight years where you will get to a stage where you quit your job. Everyone’s journey is going to be different, but it is going to take you a few years, it is going to take you some time. You are not going to be at six figures within the first six months; I know nobody who has done that. I literally know nobody who has done that, despite the fact that some people have written books saying that’s what they have done. Total BS! So, it just gives you that fuel, if you like, it is thing that will propel you, because resiliency has different components and a key component of resiliency is having a sense of purpose. It is also something about having really good self-care. Being able to manage your stress and actively manage your stress. Having a good honest assessment of your strengths and your weaknesses. So, this isn’t about…resilient people don’t tend to be the ones who think: I am absolutely amazing and brilliant; because maybe there are some people who are in the public eye who are very like that at the moment – I will not mention his name on this podcast, I mentioned his name on most podcasts, I will not here. But they are very fragile personalities, so that as soon as they do get some criticism, they kind of crumble. That’s not resilience. Resilience is people kind of have the Amazon review and kind of go: ooh that hurt but, actually, on balance, there are some things that I could maybe improve and there are some things that I actually know are wrong, because I have a good sense of my strengths and my areas for development, as we say in coaching, as we don’t tend to say weaknesses do we.

Holly: {laughing}

Jo: So, I think ultimately resiliency is the fuel and if you don’t have that, it is really, really difficult to make it. Or you make it and you have a miserable time while you do it.

Holly: Yeah, I kind of feel like if you don’t have resilience in your life, and if you are not willing to work on your resilience, you might not be cut out to be an entrepreneur, to be a business owner.

Jo: I think so.

Holly: I think it is a massive, important, part of being an entrepreneur, it is one of the main ingredients, you have got to have that.

Jo: Yeah, I would agree wholeheartedly. And I am saying that as somebody who, for a long, long, time thought: well I am not a natural entrepreneur, and I wasn’t naturally resilient person, we have to work at it. But, it gets a lot easier, because you develop these habits, you develop these practices, you don’t push yourself to the point of exhaustion: you work hard, but you rest hard. If you have that support around you, you have other people who can change your perspective; and you have a growth mindset, so you are always into the: okay, what can I learn from this, how can I make it better this time? Even when things have gone well, and I think they are so kind of core, that kind of cluster of skills, that I agree that I don’t think you could really be an effective entrepreneur, if you didn’t have resiliency or you weren’t willing to develop it.

Holly: So {laughing} ending this on a more positive note, it is something that you can develop, so if you feel like you are not super-resilient right now, you can develop it, definitely.

Jo: Yeah, look at things like no failure only feedback; so every time you have a setback kind of go: ok, that hurt, what can I learn from this? What can I do differently next time?

Holly: And if you have difficulty remembering that, you can put it on your wall!

Jo: Yes, exactly! Like I did: No failure only feedback, eBay, it wasn’t expense. Your kids will…

Holly: Your kids will benefit! {laughing}

Jo: But, yes, make sure that you have got support around you. We talk about this pretty much in every episode, but find your people, find a community online, find a few of them, whether you start with a Facebook group, like Holly’s or mine, both of which we will link to in the show notes. Or, you find an in-person, you set up your own meet-up group or something, or you join a paid mastermind. Find some people who are walking the same path to you, who can talk you down from the ledge when you are having a burn it all down day. Or who can give you that positive reframe when your inner critic is having a field day. Look after yourself, properly look after yourself. This is why I rage against the whole Gary xx: work 16-hours a day; you need to be able to fill the well, as Jason Bourne says: rest is a weapon.

Holly, your business wouldn’t be your business, if it wasn’t for you going and doing those beautiful walks, and that’s such a key part of your, I want to self-care, but it is just part of your character, your self-expression. Without that… If I don’t take breaks, if I don’t spend time with my family, if I don’t speak to my friends, if I don’t go and do some yoga, or stuff like that, I am really not nice to be around, I don’t make great decisions. And there is loads of science out there about what high levels of stress does to our brain but, very quickly, it doesn’t make you any more creative, it actually shuts down that part of your brain. Literally, that part of your brain doesn’t work as well the more stress that you get. That’s why it is so difficult to make decisions when we are really stressed out. And then the final thing is: what is your why, what is your sense of purpose; because a big link with resiliency is having a strong connection to your purpose: why am I doing this? What drives me? And, a sense of purpose is about understanding how you are connected to something bigger than yourself, so it is not just about paying the bills: “my sense of purpose is paying the bills”, yeah it is kind of for everybody, but It is more than that. Because when you get to…there are so many stories of entrepreneurs who once they get to the stage of the six figures, who then say: I was miserable, I had a breakdown, or I was getting anxiety attacks… regularly, you will hear high profile entrepreneurs saying that, because they hit a plateau and go: I don’t know why I am doing this anymore. So, you always need to be reconnecting with your sense of purpose, and growing that and that will evolve and it comes in layers: this is the next layer of my business, this is why I am doing it. All of those things are really, really important and then you get to create a business that is good and feels good and is sustainable.

Holly: And it is still going to have ups and downs.

Jo: Exactly! But you recognise that that is part of it. It is like anything in life, it is like being part of a family, or a marriage or something, it is not all champagne and roses all the time.

Holly: Unicorns.

Jo: Well mine isn’t, unless everybody else’s is…it is not. It just isn’t because that’s not a life, so it is balancing that growth mindset, and optimism, with a recognition that it is not the end of the world if, and when, things go wrong. What’s that phrase, it is a bit cliched, but: you are only a failure if you use that as a cause to never try again. So, yeah. I was going to say that’s everything I have to say on resilience, it is not, my whole business used to be around resilience. {laughing} So, I have way more to say, about it, but we should probably end there.

Holly: Yeah, I think it’s good. I really, really think that this is something that it’s important for us to talk about, as entrepreneurs, because it can be so easy to get caught in the glitter and unicorns of business and not look at, kind of, the dark side of business, which really isn’t that bad, but it is there, and so I think it is worth discussing.

Jo: Exactly. Think of it like the shadow side of business you know, you have got to be able to acknowledge it, because if you just push past it, and try and keep going, then that’s when you end of face down crying in bed for three days, going: there’s no point in getting up because you are not dealing with that stuff. I think this is something that you and I talk about, I think probably offline more than online, but it is so frustrating when the kind of image we have online is that everyone is having it so easy, and everything is really successful and that’s absolutely not the truth; but it can leave you feeling: what’s wrong with me in my business, because my business doesn’t feel as easy as theirs looks. And, you know I really do think we need to be telling a broader, more fuller, picture of what the reality is like, because when it is going well it is really, really good and even when it is going badly, it is not that bad. It is really not, it is worth it. But if you kind of think, if you then add a layer of: there is something seriously wrong because I am having these failures, when actually it is: oh, this is normally because I am having these failures. It is a very different energy.

Holly: Yeah. Excellent!

Jo: I am just smiling, because I did say that I wasn’t going to say anything more then…

Both: {laughing}

Holly: Let’s wrap it up then.

Jo: So, if you have any questions about this, if you have any comments, you can contact Holly, at: [email protected]; or me: [email protected]. We would love to hear your comments around this if you agree, if you disagree. If you would like to give us some feedback then we are open for that. You can find Holly at http://HollyWorton.com and you can find me at: http://JoCasey.com and we will speak to you soon. Thanks for listening!

Holly: Thank you for listening and remember to visit hollyworton.com/220 for the show notes on this episode. Thank you.

BMP220 Jo + Holly ~ Why You Need Resilience in Your Business