Your Business is Not an Emergency Room {Ep 225}

Your phone buzzes, an email lands, a client updates a project, and suddenly your chest tightens like something is on fire. I know that feeling, and I’m here to say it plainly, your business is not an emergency room. After more than 30 years in healthcare on the frontline, I’ve seen what real emergencies look like, and I’ve also seen how easy it is to bring that same adrenaline-fuelled urgency into entrepreneurship where it doesn’t belong. 

I talk about the hidden cost of running a small business in constant “urgent” mode. Feeling drained, scattered, and always on edge, plus the ripple effects on sleep, eating, hydration, and movement. I share why most problems in service-based and product-based businesses can wait, even things like a website glitch, and how slowing down often makes you more effective. When we stop reacting like everything is life or death, we make clearer decisions and communicate with more care. 

I also break down a practical mindset shift that changes everything. Respond, don’t react. That includes setting real business boundaries, choosing response times that fit your life, and protecting weekends so your brain and body can actually rest. People learn how to treat your time by how you treat it first, and calm leadership creates calmer business operations. 

If you want better productivity without burnout, listen now, then subscribe, share this with a fellow small business owner, and leave a review. What boundary would make the biggest difference for you this week?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi everyone and welcome to Tuesday Talks with Darlene. I'm going to get a little bit cheeky with the title of this episode. It is called Your Business Is Not an Emergency Room. Now, for those that have been following me, you know that I worked in the healthcare field for over 30 years. I worked on the frontline, student paramedic, volunteer paramedic, triage nurse, worked in the emergency department, emergency room, whatever you want to call it. And I want to talk about how your business is not an emergency room. There are a lot of people out there that actually run their business like everything is urgent. Like every message needs a reply straight away, and every situation

Why Business Is Not ER

SPEAKER_00 0:44

needs instant fixing. And of course, nothing needs fixing. Most of the time, though, that's not true. Very few things in a service base or product base or whatever business you run are real emergencies. I even had it where my website wasn't working. Guess what? I didn't panic. Because if someone can't see my website for a day or so, so what? I am on Pinterest, I'm on Instagram, I am on Facebook, I'm on um YouTube, I'm on podcast. People can still find me. I don't need to panic if something happens. As I said, there's very little things. I honestly, for me personally, I can't think of anything that is a real emergency. That's my personal opinion. I'm just putting it out there, my personal opinion. And I've been running for business for a while. I've never had an emergency. In the healthcare field, yes, I did. When you actually treat everything like it's urgent, you're going to end up drained, scattered, and constantly on edge. You're going to have adrenaline go through you 24-7. It will affect your sleep. It will affect how you eat and drink. It will affect if you exercise or not. And I can guarantee you, I'm talking about this because I've been there. These episodes that I create come from personal opinion, yeah, that as well, but personal experience. All of this is personal experience. And today's episode is about stepping back from that pressure and learning how to run your business in a calmer way where you are in charge of the

The Cost Of Urgency Mode

SPEAKER_00 2:27

pace, not the chaos. Your business does not need chaos. Now, I'm going to say your business has its own energy. It has its own energy, which means you need to learn how to work with that energy. Now, not everything is urgent. As far as I'm concerned, nothing is urgent. Again, my personal opinion. Most things can wait a while. A message, a question, or a client update is not usually life or death. When you slow down your response, nothing falls apart. Think back on how you've run your business. When you've run it from urgency, what does it feel like? And then when you've run it from a place where you've got boundaries in place and you don't reply straight away, how does it feel? Because you don't need to react. It is about responding, not reacting. Reacting is more an emergency thing. Like if I'm getting followed home, I'm going to react. If an emergency happens, I'm going to react because I need to react. In business, we respond because responding comes from a place where we are calm. We don't have that adrenaline go through. An example could be you could actually read something and come back to it later when you feel calmer and clearer. When your brain is working well. Now, as you can probably hear, I'm not feeling the best. And yes, I'm recording these ahead because I've got amazing energy at the moment. Like I'm feeling, even though I'm unwell, I'm feeling incredible. And I think this is going to be about the third or fourth one I've recorded. I'm just feeling amazing. Like I honestly, yeah, it's just it's amazing. That's why I'm recording these. And the constant urgency is draining because you're running on that adrenaline 24-7. When everything feels like it needs attention right now, your nervous system never gets a break because of that adrenaline. The adrenaline is an emergency thing. It's an emergency, or you have that adrenaline when you go. Maybe you're going to do skydiving for the first time. Of course, you're going to have some adrenaline go through. That's okay. You don't need the adrenaline in your business. You want the other hormones, you want the happy hormones, those kind of hormones going through. And remember, it's okay to let things be for a moment instead of jumping straight in. Once you stop reacting to everything like it's urgent, you're going to start noticing how much stress you've been carrying just by staying switched on all the time. And I tell you, since I've let go of the healthcare field and let go of that adrenaline 24-7, it is incredible. Now, I'm recording a few episodes because I've gotten a little bit, I haven't gotten behind because an episode doesn't come out till Tuesday. But I wanted to record episodes because I like to be ahead. I like to be able to rest when I need to rest. Like I'm on well at the moment, I want to rest. Yet, as I said, I'm feeling amazing. So I'm recording recording episodes. It's really cool. And remember, you want to step out of that stress mode. You don't need to be on edge to do your job well, to run your business. It is actually better, and you make better decisions when you're not rushing. Think about in your life. When you're rushing, what kind of decisions do you make? Are they good decisions or maybe not good decisions? That's something to think about. When you run on stress, it makes everything feel so much heavier than it actually is. Things feel bigger, harder, and more overwhelming than they actually are. Your business doesn't need you reacting. It needs you responding. Remember, you don't want to you don't want to um jump on everything that comes in straight away. Things can be, you can just let them sit there for a moment. For me, I respond within, you know, two to three business days, depending on what happened. I'm studying as well. I'm not going to respond straight away. And people know that. And the weekends are my weekends. I am not going to respond to your email or your DM or whatever it is when it's a weekend. I've got those boundaries. And people know those boundaries. When you start to work from a calmer place, the next step is making sure your time and attention is not being pulled away from you all day long. And this can happen when you're working from home. Whether you actually have family or not, doesn't matter who, what, what,

Boundaries And Response Times

SPEAKER_00 7:39

how you can have your attention pulled away. And that attention could be social media, it could be emails. You want to set response times so that you're not always on. As I said, I'm going to respond within two to three business days. That's just how I'm studying. So I'm not going to be available. Remember, you don't have to reply straight away. You can actually choose set times during the day when you check messages, emails, etc., and respond properly. Remember, it's not about reacting, it's about responding. Because when you respond, you're from a karma, confident, grounded place. When you react, you have so much adrenaline going through, you could actually say something you don't mean. And that is powerful. So remember, when you decide your response times, your brain can actually rest. Your brain needs rest, your body needs rest. You are not constantly half-working in the background. And people will adjust to how you'll run how you run your business. People will. That is what I'm all about. You run your business your way and in your time. Thank you so much for watching, listening. And again, thank you for liking, subscribing, sharing, commenting. You are supporting a small business owner, and it means a lot. Doing that for a small business owner, with all due respect, actually does so much more than if you respond to a big influence or whatever out there. Remember, small business owners, we really do matter. Thank you again and wishing you a beautiful day wherever you are in the world.