Business Blasphemy
Sarah Khan, Business Advisor and Leadership Consultant, is calling B.S. on the hustle-focused status quo of business and entrepreneurship, and getting real about what it takes to grow a business or career and NOT become a statistic. In each episode, Sarah helps navigate the rampant B.S. that permeates business strategy, marketing, operations, and mindset that has business owners hustling and pivoting themselves into burnout. She cuts through the noise and gives you guidance on how to view the status quo with a more discerning eye. If you're ready for success without the B.S., buckle up for hard truths, fun rants, terrible puns and (more than) the occasional curse word.
Business Blasphemy
EP88: Doing It Scared: Imperfection + Mental Health in Business with Anita Kirkbride
In this powerful and candid conversation, Sarah reconnects with her former client and long-time friend, Anita Kirkbride, founder of Twirp Communications and advocate for mental health. Anita shares her journey of embracing imperfection, navigating depression and anxiety as an entrepreneur, and her bold decision to run for City Council.
Together, they discuss resilience, the anti-hero mindset, the power of vulnerability in business, and how women can break free from societal pressures to live authentically.
Guest Bio:
Anita Kirkbride UNDERcomplicates social media marketing for smart, successful small businesses. She encourages her clients to ditch perfectionism, embrace authenticity and #BeFlawsome in their social media. She started Twirp Communications Inc., a boutique social media consulting business, in 2011 and the Social Media Day Halifax conference in 2018. She has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs leverage social media through her consulting, BeFlawsome podcast, educational blog, and a variety of webinars and online courses. The anti-hero Spicy Anita arrived in 2023 and is known for her red leather jacket, busting myths about the online marketing industry and encouraging her followers to #UnleashTheAntiHero. An unwavering advocate for mental health awareness, Anita embodies intersectional feminism and challenges traditional business paradigms as an anti-capitalist entrepreneur and is curating an anthology of stories called Big D Energy due out October 2024. She also recently made a huge career pivot when she decided to put her name on the ballot for city council in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Connect with Anita:
Find her as @TwirpCommunications everywhere (except LinkedIn)
Are you a hero or anti-hero in your marketing? Take Anita's quiz to find out! CLICK HERE
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The Business Blasphemy Podcast is sponsored by Corporate Rehab® Strategic Consulting.
Welcome to the Business Blasphemy Podcast, where we question the sacred truths of the online business space and the reverence with which they're held. I'm your host, sarah Khan speaker, strategic consultant and BS busting badass. Join me each week as we challenge the norms, trends and overall bullshit status quo of entrepreneurship to uncover what it really takes to build the business that you want to build in a way that honors you, your life and your vision for what's possible, and maybe piss off a few gurus along the way. So if you're ready to commit business blasphemy, let's do it. Hello, hello blasphemers, welcome back. I'm very excited for this conversation because I have someone who's like the OG in my life. Okay, this is really fun because Anita Kirkbride is here and she and I have a history Like she was one of my first clients when I first started, way back in the dark ages of time, and we've kept in touch ever since and it's because I mean, first of all, we're awesome people and we're friends, but honestly, I respect the hell out of her and how she shows up and her, her brand and just everything she stands for and I just I I think if I did not have her on at some point, it would be doing you all a disservice. So she's here, we're going to talk about things. We're going to kind of let the conversation flow because we have some good conversations. Let me introduce you to her formally.
Speaker 1:Anita Kirkbride undercomplicates social media marketing for smart, successful small businesses. She encourages her clients to ditch perfectionism, embrace authenticity and hashtag be flossom. She started Twerp Communications Inc. A boutique social media consulting business in 2011, and the Social Media Day Halifax Conference in 2018. She's helped hundreds of entrepreneurs leverage social media through her consulting, beef Blossom podcast, educational blog and a variety of webinars and online courses. The anti-hero Spicy Anita arrived in 2023 and is known for her red leather jacket, which I love. I love the new branding, busting myths about the online marketing industry and encouraging her followers to unleash the anti-hero. An unwavering advocate for mental health awareness, anita embodies intersectional feminism and challenges traditional business paradigms as an anti-capitalist entrepreneur and is curating an anthology of stories called Big D Energy, due out in October of this year, 2024. She also recently made a huge career pivot when she decided to put her name on the ballot for city council in Halifax, nova Scotia. In our country of Canada, Anita welcome. So many things here I want to talk about.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, when I hear that all together it's so. It's overwhelming to hear all of those things all together at one time. But if you were to say, okay, I need it shorter, I'm not sure I can actually leave any of that stuff out. No, and I think it's such an important part of my life.
Speaker 1:It is, and it's funny because you you always see this on forms like 200 words or less, like I mean, it says it on my form, 200 words or less. But I had a guest on a little while ago, dr Monique Flemings, and her bio was really really long and we talked about you know, do we shorten it? Blah, blah, blah. But no, when you have the breadth and depth of experience that lends credibility to your experience and your credibility, you don't want to leave it out because it's like taking away a part of who you are and what makes you you. So all of that is super important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it is. And if I leave any of that out it feels like a hole. It just feels like a hole. And I always used to hate the term multi-passionate, but now I understand it I am multi-passionate and if I don't share all of those different passions then you don't really understand me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's like a bio is who you are, and even I mean, if we move past bios, right, like, how often are we, as women, told to make yourself smaller?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, that's probably what it is, honestly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like, fit into the space. Nobody wants to read. Okay, nobody wants to read it. That's cool, but I wants to read. Okay, nobody wants to read it. That's cool, but I'm still gonna put it out there. Yeah, you can take what you want from it, right, and I think that I mean it's oh, it's such a great reminder that everything that you've done makes you who you are and you don't need to hide it. I mean, yeah, it's situation dependent, but something like this yeah and I mean even with that.
Speaker 2:There's so much that's not in there. I mean, there's nothing in there about when I had an actual J-O-B Dirty word, dirty word. There's nothing in there about that. There's nothing in there about, you know, being a mom to an adult child with disabilities. There's nothing in there about I don't know how I love cilantro.
Speaker 1:All the things that make us who we are. And I want to, before we jump into, like the business stuff, people are going to hear that and go big d energy. Can we talk about that? Because I know a little bit about the project and I would love to kind of highlight that first, because it's not what you think and also it's very important it is not what people think.
Speaker 2:I I call it Big D energy, but the book is actually Big D in parenthesis depression. So it's actually Big Depression energy, but I'm going to call it Big D energy casually. It's an anthology of stories from entrepreneurs who live with depression and anxiety and most of them, unless you are in their close circles, you wouldn't know and that was me. I live with depression and anxiety. Most of my circle have depression and or anxiety. It's so common in the entrepreneurial world. In fact, I think being an entrepreneur enables us to deal with it better in some ways, because we can set our schedules and we can be flexible and do all the things.
Speaker 2:But people who haven't experienced it have a huge misunderstanding about or a misconception of what it really is. And we still hear things like oh, you're just sad, just get over it. Watch a good movie or go eat something or whatever you know, do some self-care, get a massage. But it's not being sad. That is not what depression is at all, and these stories really show a variety of ways of explaining what depression looks and feels like. And it's not what Hollywood tells us. It's not the mom who can't get out of bed and take care of her kids, because you know what I'm going to have about 20 stories in this book, and every single one of us got out of bed and took care of our kids and businesses every day.
Speaker 1:So it's not what people think and that's what I want this book to do, and that's those stories that's so important because I mean and I'll speak just from my own personal experience Like I've got people close to me who have depression, anxiety, you know, a variety of mental health challenges, and when I was first exposed to them, I was that person who was like, just suck it up and get over it, because that's how I was taught to deal with my own life. Right, it doesn't matter how you feel, suck it up, move on, you can do it, just power through it, power through it. And it's actually in supporting the people close to me that I learned. I mean, I haven't been diagnosed because, like a mom, everybody else's stuff comes first, right, so let's get everybody else's support, and I just haven't had time to do it.
Speaker 1:But when you look at and when you learn what anxiety looks like, for example, I'm pretty sure I'm clinically anxious. I'm pretty sure, because a lot of the symptoms and things that I always chalked up to you're just lazy, you need a holiday, maybe you're gaslighting, like all the different excuses we make I'm like, oh shit, is that anxiety? Is that what that is? Is that what I've been dealing with and I didn't know. So I'm really glad that you're having the conversation because even though anxiety is becoming a little bit more mainstream in terms of a topic depression is not that still feels like it has a little bit of a taboo associated with it.
Speaker 2:Well, it definitely does. And the really interesting thing is I mean, there's some other mental health issues going on around me right now. All of these mental illnesses, all of them, they all share so many of the same symptoms and it's about severity and timing and which combination you have. It's so hard to diagnose one or the other. Is it depression or is it anxiety? Well, you know what? Thankfully, they're both treated with the same kind of drugs. So I don't know. You know, I know I have depression. I think I have anxiety, but the drugs keep me going, have anxiety, but the drugs keep me going.
Speaker 2:And I'm not afraid to tell people that I'm on drugs, because that's one of the big stigmas about it. Right, I don't want to be on drugs. I don't want to have to take drugs for my brain. Like what does that say? Who's going to trust me to run a business if I have to take drugs just to focus? Well, drugs for everything else. So why not focus? Well, that's for everything else. So I tell people all the time that I take antidepressants and it's it is for depression and anxiety, both. It helps with both. But you know, when you alleviate the symptoms of one, it starts to alleviate the symptoms of the other. Yeah, and anybody who might be listening, who's thinking that they might be on this spectrum, because it is a spectrum and somebody else recently told me that it's actually neurodiversity too, which I never really thought of before.
Speaker 2:So now I classify myself as neuro spicy. Just go and ask, because what's the worst that can happen? They give you a prescription, you take it, you don't feel any different. Okay, well, at least you tried. Or you go see your naturopath, you take some supplements. It doesn't help, at least you tried. But why continue to suffer? The worst thing that's going to happen is you're going to start to feel better. Like, if you start to feel better, you're going to you're going to think why did I wait so long to get help?
Speaker 2:And you know it, it always it takes me too long to go back and get help, but this time I'm probably on these drugs forever at this point.
Speaker 1:So I think it comes back to like don't. Don't allow yourself to feel comfortable in your discomfort. Like go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had that conversation with somebody the other day. It's a lot easier to just know that you're going to wake up feeling this way every day than it is to deal with the embarrassment or the pain or whatever it is of going and asking for help.
Speaker 1:Like you're not going to just pop a pill and suddenly feel better, right? And I think that's probably something that turns a lot of people not turns them off, but like makes them hesitate. It's like how many times am I going to have to adjust my medication? How long is this going to take, like how? And it's like, well, you know what? It'll take a lot longer if you leave it longer. So get on it. Well.
Speaker 2:I'll be honest this last time it took me over a year to get on the right medication, because I was stubborn and I told the doctor I didn't want to take the one I took before because it made me gain weight, and I didn't want to gain weight. So I tried everything else that was on the market, every other combination of pills, and none of them worked for me as well without side effects, like I couldn't live with the side effects that I was having.
Speaker 2:So finally, after about a year and a bit, I just look I'm tired of trying all these drugs. Let's just go back on this one. And you know, six weeks later I started feeling better. So at some point you just have to. You kind of have to get over yourself and say you know what this is. The embarrassment of saying I need help is a lot less than continuing to let this go on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this kind of segues a little bit nicely into the concept of the antihero. Right, tell me about how this came up for you. Like, tell me about what it means to you first, and then like, how did you come to this place?
Speaker 2:So antiheroes are people who they're always looking out for their own best interests or their families or their businesses, whatever their own, is right.
Speaker 2:It's not that they're. A lot of people think antiheroes are villains, and antiheroes aren't technically villains, they're flawed heroes which it's kind of like. So for me, Flossum you mentioned Flossum is the philosophy of being flawed and being awesome despite your flaws and then embracing it. The antihero is kind of the next step. So we recognize that we're all flawed. There is no such thing as perfection. We have to get past the stress of constantly trying to be perfect. The antihero is the person that says, yeah, that just doesn't work for me, I'm going to do it this way, I don't need perfection. The minimum viable product, let's ship that right. You know, I got to get, I want to make a course, I got to get something out and then I can learn as I go. I can, I can perfect it, I can work towards perfection as it goes on. But they're always doing what works for them themselves, their business and their family.
Speaker 2:And that doesn't mean that they necessarily do things that are bad for other people. But they're not out here saying, oh, everybody says I have to do it this way and I'm going to hurt their feelings if I don't do it the way they said. No, no, that doesn't work for me, I'm going to do it my way and they just own it. They just own it and a lot of that comes out in social media. When we start telling stories, when we start sharing imperfections, like having a mental illness and taking drugs for a mental illness, but what you find is that people start relating to you. That resonates with them a whole lot more than this perfect image that you might be putting out there and never having any problems. People don't believe that. But if you start sharing the vulnerable side of you and your business and what you're actually going through and you don't have to share every detail, people always ask me like how?
Speaker 1:much do I share.
Speaker 2:You don't have to share every detail. People always ask me like, how much do I share? You don't have to share every detail, but telling people that you're struggling, that's okay. Telling people that you're doing this, even though best practice says to do it this way, that's great. Do that. Just do what works for you and your business, because what works for that multi-million dollar coach over here, Well, they've got a whole team around them, so, yeah, that's going to work for them. To do four hours a week of work, that is not going to work for you as you're starting up. So we just there's so much pressure out there to do things a certain way, and that certain way does not work for everybody, so it's really incumbent upon us to figure out how is this going to work for me? How can I make this work? Yeah, so that I'm not stressing myself out and burning out.
Speaker 1:There was a premium on aspirational content years ago, where you know the sipping champagne by the pool and your Bentley and your Louis Vuittons and like that was really great. And I think there was a backlash silent, maybe somewhat silent backlash against it. I mean, some people were a little bit loud about it. It got a little louder after a couple of years.
Speaker 2:It did.
Speaker 1:And then we did get this. The pendulum did kind of swing to vulnerable authentic as an aside, I hate the word authentic, it's so overused, but I think it's because there's no other word to use but authentic. Some people took it to an extreme where, like you said, they did share and bear everything. You are an expert marketing person, like you understand social media. You understand marketing From a professional perspective. Where's the line Like? Where's the line of you want to share so that you are relatable? But this is too much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean that's going to be different for everybody and different for every business and I really struggle with telling people where that line is. I get asked that in every workshop where's that line of how much I share personally? But you share what you're comfortable with. So you know what I've mentioned, that there's other mental health issues going on in my circle. That doesn't mean that I'm going to tell everybody what that is right, that's too much, that's not my story to tell, so I don't have to share all of that.
Speaker 2:You know I've made videos in my messy kitchen. Some people would say that's too much, but you know what. I'm a mom. I'm a busy mom running a business and now running for council. I don't have time to do dishes every day, so my kitchen is messy. I think you have to think about what you're comfortable sharing and if you would share it with I don't know a colleague at work, then maybe that's okay to share. But if you wouldn't tell everybody at work about it, I don't know, maybe not. There was also a period where, when authenticity first started, people were faking their authenticity, oh curated authenticity.
Speaker 2:That's what.
Speaker 1:I hear.
Speaker 2:Curated authenticity, yeah, authenticity, that's what I hear. Curated authenticity, yeah. And they would go out in their perfectly clean kitchens with their perfectly clean tables and their manicured tablescapes and dinners and everything.
Speaker 2:There are three kids under five, like really Exactly, and they would say, oh, I'm just sitting here, my kitchen is such a mess. I'm like, are you kidding? It looks like it's in a magazine, Are you kidding? And that that kind of backlash. We really saw some backlash over that. I don't think that curated perfection lasted too long, really.
Speaker 2:And then we've started going the opposite way, Like, oh my gosh, some people really do share too much. We don't need. We don't need videos of you out partying. If you're a business owner, you know that's definitely over the line. We see people sharing personal stuff online that just shouldn't be shared. You want to share your personality, but not stuff that's personal. That's usually what I say. Share stuff that shows your personality. Share what's on your desk. Share the art in your house. Share, I don't know, your love of cilantro on tacos, but you don't have to share. You know you don't have to go show people how dirty your bathroom is yeah. Or you don't have to talk about all the details of your divorce yeah. Or, you know, start naming and shaming people in your life. That's not the kind of personal stuff we need to share.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think there's a fine like there's a. There are some people, I think, who who struggle with sharing, like you said, their personality and sometimes personal things that relate back to the work they do, how they help people. That's one thing, and people who just trauma dump and it's almost like I kind of feel. Like I mean, I guess you need to have a certain level of self-awareness to be able to do this, so we'll put a caveat there. But it's people who are using the personal stuff to elicit a response, to get clicks and to get likes and follows and attention, versus serving their audience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I don't know if you can. I don't know if that's something that can be learned, the difference between those, because you either do it or you don't. Yeah, like if you said to somebody you know you really should have turned that into a story about business so that you could serve your audience. They're going to look at you and say I did Right, but I don't know if they're trauma dumping, if they're looking for attention, they're not going to see how they could do that they could do that.
Speaker 1:No, and to be fair, me even saying that I'm sure there's people listening going well, you're trying to monetize everything. Like not everything is a business transaction, like, I get that. But I think what we've been losing and this is my personal perspective I think what we have been losing in this sort of era of authenticity and sharing behind the scenes and being as honest and genuine as possible online when it comes to business, I do feel like we've lost that professional edge in some respects. And I'm not saying because I'm the last person to say show up in a suit and tie and just be 100% corporate. That's not me. But there has to still be some kind of like. I'm not going to.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I'd be comfortable hiring somebody who is trauma dumping all over the place as their marketing strategy. Right, like it doesn't make any sense to me to hire somebody because if you can't, if you can't regulate yourself in a public space, how are you going to help me do what I need to do? But then there are people who are like no, these messy humans over here. I resonate with them a hundred percent. So I think it depends, but I do. I personally feel like there still needs to be some sort of measure of professionalism, however you want to define that in the business space. I do feel like we're losing a little bit of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we're coming back, though I see less of that curated perfection and I honestly maybe it's just the circles I'm in but I don't see a lot of trauma dumping. One or two people I can think of that are kind of out there looking for attention, but I guess I curate my feeds pretty well. I've got people like you in it, so we don't do that.
Speaker 1:And you know what. That's actually a really good point. I think we forget, because I was in a space for a while where trauma was the focus just as a topic, and so you do attract people. Who that's?
Speaker 2:where they live right.
Speaker 1:So I have been recently very good at hiding people and following people, you know, because, as I said and I can't remember a few podcasts ago, we like to think that we are mentally and emotionally like, we have the fortitude to know and to not let things, but everything impacts you. Everything affects you, I mean there. I mean I know that if I'm scrolling my feeds and I'm like I need to take a break, there is something wrong. Right, there's something wrong with the, with the information and the content that's showing up on my feed, because my feed should not make me want to run and hide.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think people underestimate the power of the mute button. You don't have to unfriend somebody, you don't have to block them, you can just mute them and then you don't have to see their posts anymore and they don't know the difference. So, and if you want to check out what they're doing, you just go back and check them out. But I do this all the time, yeah, all the time. It really does help to clean up your feed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's important, especially when we're talking in full circle right back to mental health. I think it's super important. Tell me a little bit about, because I know that right now you're on a hiatus. You are running for council. Actually, let's do it this way. Tell me how that came about, because I kind of know, but I want the full story. How did you decide, like what was the impetus for this pivot?
Speaker 2:Well, it's something I've thought about for a long time. Politics in general. I mean when I was in university I did a political trip. Sorry, when I was in high school I did a political trip. When I was in university I worked as a page in the New Brunswick legislature. So I've always had an interest and I thought I was going to be a lawyer when I was in high school because I like to argue, that's what I thought being a lawyer was about back then. But through the years, misogyny and men and all this stuff really took a toll on my confidence and I really felt like I wasn't good enough to do anything in that realm and I just wanted to do my job and hide away. But more recently that confidence has come back for lots of reasons, lots of different reasons. But I started thinking about it again and there was an opening in our council that our city council is city councillor for this area is not reoffering, so there's an opening and it just kind of all felt like the right time. But I was still scared.
Speaker 1:So, getting to the part that you want me to tell, no, I don't, because actually okay, do it anyway, and then we'll do it anyway.
Speaker 2:So I was. I struggled with this decision for several months. I put it out on Twitter Should I do it, should I not? I got a few responses. My husband would actually say, yeah, I think you should do it. My sister said, no, you shouldn't. You're absolutely crazy for doing that.
Speaker 2:Then I thought about my business. This is two businesses that I've set up and run for 13 and seven years. Did I want to give them up? Would I have to give them up? So what did I do? I called Sarah Because you had a post one day.
Speaker 2:That was something about. I forget what the post was even now. It was something about being comfortable in your fear, wasn't it? And so I got you on the phone and said ask me these questions that you need to ask me to make me see my decision. Basically, what I said. I know you'll ask me the questions. I need somebody to ask me. And I think the first question out of your mouth was well, if you didn't want to do this, why would we? Wouldn't be talking. Why are we having this conversation? Yeah, why are we having this conversation? And I went shit. Yeah, yeah, I think I needed somebody. I wanted somebody to tell me it was okay. Yeah, somebody objective, yeah, and you didn't do that, but you made me realize that's what I was wanting, yeah. So I mean, that was that, was that was the the final straw. I guess I had already decided I was going to do it, but I needed somebody to tell me it was okay to do it. Somebody outside of the family, yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm glad that I could be that person and no, I didn't. This wasn't what I was like angling, I wasn't fishing for this, but I'm glad you shared it. But what I wanted to get at was when I look at the courage that you have had to have to do this, because it does require courage, right, it requires, as my coach will say, the ovarian audacity and the testicular fortitude. Right, it requires courage to do it.
Speaker 1:And there are so many people who have had businesses maybe not even as long as you have who are feeling this need to pivot, who are feeling this need to change or just try something different, or just hit the pause button for a little while Not even full stop, but just hit the pause button for a little while, taking a break and who are afraid to, or worried about what it could mean, worried about all the momentum, like all the things that we worry about mean worried about all the momentum, like all the things that we worry about. So I would love to know, when you finally embrace that idea, like what did you have to tell yourself, from a business owner perspective, about what this meant and what it could do for you personally? Because I think, as an entrepreneur, we tend to make too many decisions from the perspective of how does this affect my business, which is not unimportant, but it's where we kind of sit. You did this for you, so I would love to hear what was that internal dialogue for you? How did that come about?
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, I don't even know. Part of me was looking for a change. Part of me is tired of the business, the rollercoaster struggle of being an entrepreneur, and that's not to say I struggle. I pay myself quite well, it's not a struggle, but it is a struggle. It's a mental struggle to run your own business and take care of all your own bills and not have help from a company outside of that. So there is a lot of mental anguish there as an entrepreneur. So there is a lot of mental anguish there as an entrepreneur. But so part of me was looking for a change.
Speaker 2:But also I kept telling myself you know, I complain about the decisions they make, or I don't understand why they're doing it this way. Or you know, why haven't they asked this question? Or why aren't they? I just kept asking myself all these questions and I finally said I should stop complaining unless I'm willing to put my own self out there. And the only way I'm ever going to figure out why they do it this way or why they haven't thought about this, or why they're not asking that question, is if I get in there and find out.
Speaker 2:And it was the fear of the getting in there that was stopping me, like it's the campaigning that scares me off of politics more than anything. It's not getting in and doing the job, it's not understanding the reports, it's not asking questions or helping my constituents. It's the idea of campaigning or helping my constituents. It's the idea of campaigning saying you have to vote for me. That's the part I hate. Yeah, but because it feels like a popularity contest and I was never the popular one, so I don't like that aspect of it.
Speaker 2:But really it was that feeling like I need to. I need to figure this out for myself, how things work and why they work that way and then maybe, bringing a different perspective, I can make some positive changes. Because a lot of the people that are in there are, you know, career politicians or they, you know, or they don't have business experience, or they have big business experience, they don't have experience with mental health issues, or they don't have tiny business experience. So I just kept looking and saying I do have something different to offer here and I'm going to try for it. I don't know if there was anything any bigger than that. Really, it was just getting over that fear and once I've decided I'm going to do something, then I just do it. Sometimes getting to that decision takes a while.
Speaker 1:But I think this speaks really beautifully to I think there is a collective exhaustion right. I think there is a collective exhaustion right Just in the entrepreneurial space, the online business space, of having to, of just having to do it all and like wanting to, kind of, like I said, take a break. And I noted on your form, because one of the things that I ask my guests to do is fill out this form. And you know, do you have a podcast? Because I love to do like a switch up and I know you have a podcast, but you said not lately, and you're going to revive it if you lose the election. First of all, when? When is the election In October, october 19th? We're going to have to keep an eye on that. But also like the fact that, like you were, you were such a great role model for you can take a break and do a different thing and pick up later on if you choose to Like.
Speaker 1:There's always this fear of losing momentum. Or you know, I don't. If I don't post every single day, for example, on social media, right, I'm going to lose momentum, blah, blah, blah. And I mean there's some some validity to that. And also no, because nothing is finite.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean a couple of years ago now, I disappeared from social media. I was the social media consultant who just disappeared from social media. I said on my profiles I'm it's August, social media day just happened. I'm taking the rest of the summer off. I'll see you in September. September came around. I posted something to the effect of yeah, I'm not quite ready to come back, I'm going to take a little bit more time, I'll see you later.
Speaker 2:Next thing I knew it was a year and a half. So I was able to take a year and a half off, and I was only able to do that because I had a successful business. I was able to squirrel away the money to allow my. I was able to pay myself that whole time. So I didn't have that stress of constantly trying to find new clients. I just kept the ones I had going and I didn't take on anything new for about a year and a half before I really started looking for it again.
Speaker 2:And when I came back it was really interesting. When I came back I had a few people that wrote to me and said I missed you, I'm glad you're back, and I had a few people that said, huh, I didn't even realize you were gone. But now I do do, now that you're back, I realize you're gone, yeah, and so that told me that, yeah, it's okay to take a break. We don't have to be there forever and and all the time people I people don't think that much about us, right, yeah, how much they think about us is not our business. So it was really interesting coming back and the welcome that I got from people when I came back, because I came back different. I came back anti-hero. I came back talking about things in a different way and sharing my mental health struggles. And people needed that. They needed something different, they were ready for something different. And, of course, all that happened at the end of COVID. Everybody was tired, everybody was having mental health issues, everybody needed a break. But I took a real break. I didn't do anything. There were days, just like in Hollywood, there were days where I sat and played Farmville on the couch. That's all I did was watch Netflix and play Farmville on the couch and make sure my kids were fed.
Speaker 2:And then, coming back from that was the year where I was trying all the different medications to get back into things, because depression is more about inability to motivate yourself than it is about being sad. And people will say, well, you know, get out and exercise and do this and do that, and you're like, I don't even like. The thought of going for a walk was too much, I don't know how else to describe it. Somebody said, oh, you need to find your joy when you have depression. When you're in the throes of depression, you do not even comprehend what joy is anymore. Yeah, so saying to somebody find something that gives you joy. You, you, just you don't. That's not to say I wasn't happy in my life, yeah, but to say find something that gives you joy. Like, you're, just like. But it's.
Speaker 1:It's one of the reasons why I have such a like, such a problem with the mainstream self-help industry and, you know, the self-care movement and like all of these superficial platitudes and fixes where people are not really willing to understand what goes on underneath the surface. And I mean, I'm not, I'm not, you know, picking on anyone in particular, but you know things like, oh, just count to five and oh, just like the sound bitey advice, right, that is actually keeping people more stuck. I have such a problem with it and it's like if you really want to address these issues, you have to be willing to go beneath the surface.
Speaker 2:And yeah, I mean count to five or go take a bath or do what. I think all that stuff is great, but it's you know, counting to five is not going to help you come out of a depression.
Speaker 1:No, it's not gonna help you get out of bed when you literally can't feel your body.
Speaker 2:Yeah, taking a bath is going to make you feel good for a minute, but 10 minutes later you're just going to be back on the couch playing Farmville. You'll be clean.
Speaker 1:you'll smell good but you're just going to be there playing Farmville again, exactly. So what have you had to cultivate personally in order to not only thrive as a business owner, but thrive as a business owner with mental health struggles?
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know that it was a conscious cultivation, but resilience is the thing right. I have a friend who a contributor to the book actually who speaks about resilience and she says you can learn resilience.
Speaker 2:And I guess I learned it somewhere along the way, because here I am taking on a whole new challenge in a very public way, after having you know what I mean, what some people would call a breakdown. I've had two of them, if you want to use that old school terminology right, and to come back from that and go in a whole new direction and have a business that's up and running still, that takes resilience. I don't know how I did that, I just did it because I'm a mom. That's what you do. I get and I know I'm kind of giving that impression that you just do it, but that was me right. I had kids that needed to be fed. I had business that had to be done. You just do it. You work through it somehow. There are people who can't. That's their struggle. That's why I think it's important to share stories from the spectrum of what different mental illnesses look like, because we don't all feel it the same way. We don't all struggle with the same things. But somewhere along the way I was able to bounce back. It was a slow bounce but I, you know I've I've bounced back and and I can handle the stress again and I can handle competing priorities and I can handle running priorities and I can handle running a business and, you know, attending events as a for a campaign and all that kind of stuff. So I think we can learn resilience. So back to your question.
Speaker 2:The other thing that I had to really work on was was giving up perfectionism and being okay with it. I don't think I'd been a perfectionist for a long, long time years like since I had kids and my kids are 19 and 21. So I think I gave up perfectionism somewhere around the time they were two. But really coming to terms with the idea that it just doesn't exist. Perfection just doesn't exist. Nothing is ever going to be perfect and the constant striving for perfectionism just stresses us out, and so giving that up was difficult and it's an ongoing process. I can't say I've given it up completely, but being able to let go of that loosen the reins on that is huge.
Speaker 1:This has been such a good conversation. If there's one piece of advice that you could give to somebody who is maybe in that liminal space of like, do I continue, do I not? How do I know now is the time? How do I know this is just fear. Like what would you say to someone who's like I? Just I feel like something needs to change, but I don't know what.
Speaker 2:Call Sarah. You know it's funny. I just shared this decision making tool that I use with my daughter. The other day she was trying to decide whether or not to move into this particular apartment, and you have to frame the question a little bit differently than what you just said. So it's not a something needs to change, what is it? But it's a. I have a decision. It's a yes, no. Do I want to keep this business? Yes, no. Do I want to run for council? Yes, no, Do I? I'm gonna make everybody laugh here Do I want?
Speaker 2:to have a second date with this person? Yes, no, and I used this. He's he's sitting over here listening to me, so he's laughing because he's heard this story before. I used this decision making tool to decide to give him a second date, and he's still here 10 years later. So it works, it works, it works. But we used it the other night to decide whether or not she should accept this apartment or whether she should live at home for a year.
Speaker 2:And it's basically, if you make four squares, down the side you put best and worst case scenario and across the top you put yes and no. So you've got four corners, You've got yes and best case scenario. If you say yes to this thing, what is the absolute best case scenario you can think of? And then you move over. If you say no, what is the best case scenario you can think of? Then you go to worst. If you say yes, what's the worst case? If you say no, what's the worst case? And oftentimes it comes down to regret I will regret not trying right, and for me, that's what I should say. For me, that's often what it comes to because of fear. Right, Fear is I don't want to do it, Regret is I should have tried, even though I was scared. So it came down to you know if best case scenario, I win the election and I do a really good job, and I'm glad that I did this, and maybe someday I become mayor and then I become prime minister, I don't know.
Speaker 2:It not going to happen. But best, that's best case scenario and you can be wild with that. Worst case scenario for trying to become counselor, making this huge pivot was I don't know. I go out there. I lose a few $1,000 in a campaign that I had to put the money in myself. Maybe I get no support. I embarrass myself. They dig up some skeleton from my closet. I don't have any skeletons, but they find something that is somewhat embarrassing and they use that.
Speaker 2:I can recover from that, right, I can move on. I have a business base. I have people who will still support me in business even after that happens. So I can. I can do that. If I don't try, if I don't run the campaign, best case scenario and we move on. We get a good counselor. I never regret it. I move on. My business goes in a good direction. Whatever Worst case scenario, I always wonder if I could have done something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then you ask yourself can you live with these outcomes? Which ones can you live with and which ones can't you live with? And your answer becomes pretty clear. I don't want to live with the constant wondering of what could have been. I can live with the embarrassment of losing. I can rebuild a business. I've already proven that I can live with business. I've already proven that I can live with the regret of not trying. But I don't want to live with the regret of not trying. I lived with oh boy, I don't want to get into this whole story now, but I lived with the regret of allowing Kevin to break up with me once, and then I lived with that for, you know, 20, 25 years before we came back together, yeah, so now I always I look at regret very different, yeah, and so when I say it's all about regret and fear, this, this very simple four squares, helps you find what those fears are and whether what you can live with.
Speaker 2:So, I have actually made a video of that. If anybody wants to reach out to me for a little video in Canva of how to do this four square exercise, I can't credit anybody with it because I can't find the original person that, 20 years ago, made a video and shared it. I've never been able to find this exact example again, but that little exercise is so much more valuable to me than a pros and cons list.
Speaker 1:I love that and I love the reframing of fear and regret, because that is what it really comes down to a lot of the time.
Speaker 2:It does Comes down to fear. All the time. It's always about fear, and the anti-hero way is to look fear in the face and do it anyway. Yeah Right, we do things scared because if we let fear win, you won't start a business, you won't put out a course, you won't write the book, you won't go on the podcast, you won't run for council, you won't date your high school boyfriend If you let fear run your life you won't do anything and you're always going to be fearful.
Speaker 2:So sometimes you just have to look fear in the face, say thank you for warning me. I do sometimes actually talk to myself this way. Yeah, Thank you for warning me about this, but you know what? I'm going to try this anyway and see how it goes.
Speaker 1:The corporate rehab way is fuck your fear. Fuck your fear and do it anyway. Yeah, amazing, do it scared, do it scared, do it scared. Anita, this has been so wonderful. Thank you so much. I'm excited at the prospect of you, you know, winning this election and doing a new thing and making an impact. And, either way, I know that we're going to be hearing great, great things from you. And yeah, if you want, I'll put some connection details in the show notes. If you want to connect with Anita about anything, donate to her campaign or you know anything like that, check out the show notes to connect with her, because she's I mean, she's just amazing to know. So just make sure you know her and thank you for taking the time. I say the same about you everybody has to know you. I think it's just what you know, part and parcel of just being connected with badass women right, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2:That's. All I have around me are badass women.
Speaker 1:That's as it should be and dragons and dragons, no, and dragons, no, unicorns. I mean unicorns are welcome. We'll just turn them into dragons eventually. Thank you very much for being here and, as always, my friends, like I say, you can have success in any capacity, as long as you're willing to let go of the BS. Talk to you next week. That's it for this week. Thanks for listening to the Business Blasphemy Podcast. We'll be back next week with a new episode, but in the meantime, help a sister out by subscribing and, if you're feeling extra sassy, rating this podcast, and don't forget to share the podcast with others. Head over to businessblasphemypodcastcom to connect with us and learn more. Thanks for listening and remember you can have success without the BS.