Episode 044: There is a lot going on in the day to day operations of your shop. Are you tossing and turning or waking in the night? Do you have so much on your mind that you feel anxious? Lori and Vonda talk about a few things that can be the cause of your anxiety and ways to help you manage and use it to your advantage!
More about the podcast The Business and Pleasure of Flowers
and their sponsors, Flower Clique and Flower Prep School
Sponsored by:
Flower Clique
Flower Clique Prep School
Real Life Retail Florist
Episode 044: There is a lot going on in the day to day operations of your shop. Are you tossing and turning or waking in the night? Do you have so much on your mind that you feel anxious? Lori and Vonda talk about a few things that can be the cause of your anxiety and ways to help you manage and use it to your advantage!
More about the podcast The Business and Pleasure of Flowers
and their sponsors, Flower Clique and Flower Prep School
Sponsored by:
Flower Clique
Flower Clique Prep School
Real Life Retail Florist
Anxiety directs you to whatever needs your attention, because that fear or that anxiety is because of something, something triggered that. And you have to figure out what that trigger was, which is what you're protecting yourself against.
Speaker 2:Good morning, Vonda. How are you? I'm pretty good.
Speaker 3:I was up in the night again. We do that sometimes. Right,
Speaker 2:Right. Wait, bladder or brain while you were up. Which one? O h, okay. This was great.
Speaker 3:Woke me in the night and I lay there and I go over in my mind what I didn't get complete yesterday. So then I'm like, okay, well I didn't get this done now. Can I get that done today? And what do I have to add on the list? And I find myself prioritizing what I still need to get done. Yeah. This is what I didn't do yesterday. This is what I need to do today. Can I get all of that done? I even go down to where I still have 25 recipes. I have to create. If I look at those, they should have, that should be about two and a half hours t hat I should be able to do that. And if I get that done and I'm not interrupted, I can get this done next, but I know I'm going to have to make some other calls. So, y ou k now, all of that goes in my mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Well, first of all, you're making my heart rate go up just thinking about it. But I have been doing the same thing, but for different reasons, again, you know, my youngest child who is an adult, he's moving and the next week he's moving back to Ohio to live with his brother, which is great. We're all excited, but I'm doing the same thing. I will wake up at like four in the morning, thinking of packing situations, how, cause we're road tripping. The two of us i n a car I'm actually really excited to do that yet. I'm already packing the car mentally. Oh my gosh. And so I wake up worrying about these kinds of things and it's stupid because it shouldn't be my problem because you are the mom, right? So I'm figuring all this. I even wake up like, Oh my G od, which little mini cooler I'm going to take for our snacks because it can't come back with me. C ause I, anyway, I feel yet sister, but y ours i s about the business.
Speaker 3:Mine is pretty. Business-related, it's very calming though for me, after I get through that, you know, that I'm like, okay, now take a deep breath. I actually am saying a prayer. And then I'm like, I c an't go back to s omething I can get through this.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes. So you don't like get up and go straight into your office and start working.
Speaker 3:I don't, because I found that that makes it worse. I felt like it really does make it worse. What I do oftentimes is get up and I actually write the list down. I come my office, I write down the steps I thought about because sometimes in the morning, I forget what I had figured out in my mind. I read years ago, your unconscious computer that helps you solve those little problems in the night, which I think is kind of interesting. Isn't it?
Speaker 2:I totally believe you. And I think there's something to that I can remember. My mom was the queen of finding things like my dad didn't lose his keys. She would find it. Somewhat brother loses his wallet. It may not be that day, but the next morning she would wake up and she's like, I know where the last place it was that was seen. And she would find it. Wow. And we all were amazed because she was so good at that. But I think what it is in the stress and crazy of the day, you can't get your thoughts together to remember where you put your car keys, where you, you know, do this, do that. That makes sense. If that was her unconscious computer, once you're calmed down enough, like, no it's right here. This is where it was. You know, because of all this, we're going to be talking about anxiety today, right? Anxiety with your business. We narrowed the field a lot and I do want to make sure everyone understands. We are not talking about clinical anxiety, which is very real. That is another thing. What we're talking about is situational anxiety, your circumstances. At the moment, I was reading a while back about, you know, everyone dealing with the self isolation since March and concern and fears because we were in the middle of the crisis. And what they were talking about is the reason so many of us are having anxiety that we never really realize we had is because typically situational anxiety is in a crisis and a crisis is, is short, like short lived this isn't. And so we don't our bodies and our minds just don't quite know how to deal with it. So we're manifesting it in all different ways. One of them being a lot of anxiety.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And right now we know one true anxiety that the shops are having. Is there really a product shortages, whether it be fresh f lour for the fall, whether it be containers that are y ours for Christmas and Valentine's day, people are saying, we don't even know what we're going to have. So that's causing anxiety, but let's talk about how that anxiety can actually work to your advantage. Right?
Speaker 2:Right. And again, we are talking about situational anxiety when it comes to your business, correct. If we play our cards right. When we feel anxiety coming on, we can use it to our advantage for our business.
Speaker 3:And you're right. We are not trying to downplay real anxiety and depression because that is all through. And there's so much of that going around. Right. If you have that, please seek medical attention. Right. Because it's, it's tough. Well, we're talking about in the workspace where you're having more anxiety with what's happening in your business than you normally do,
Speaker 2:Right? Like you waking up thinking of all the stuff we have to do for flower click. Right? Exactly. So we have a couple, two or three or maybe even four ways that it can work to your advantage. Number one, and th en j ust kind of statement, like not do this, but they're just statements. Number one, anxiety is rooted in your need to protect yourself. Fear and anxiety. Von da ca n see me and you guys can't and I' m holding my hands next to each other. And li ke they're parallel, you know, fear and an xiety live cohesively. You think about, you know, generations and ge nerations prior to us, fear causes us to have adrenaline. And it helps you refocus on li ke, okay, I got to do it. I get it. I t's that fight or flight, right? You ei ther be pa ralyzed like a deer in the headlights or you jump up and say, what do I have to do? Right.
Speaker 3:Exactly. It directs you to number two, anxiety directs you to whatever n eed your attention because that fear or that anxiety is because of something, something triggered that. And you have to figure out what that trigger was, which is what you're protecting yourself against. And then you bring your attention to that. As you mentioned, just a few minutes ago,
Speaker 2:Right? You talking about a shortage of flowers or a shortage of vases or, you know, all of those types of things. I didn't realize until we started, I know you had known and you've been working with companies, but we started getting emails from some of our members. They, things like my rep said, if you don't have everything in, by October 30th, you can't be guaranteed your products. You talk about anxiety on our end because we're scrambling around and we have to fix these things. So that's a good thing. It's bad because our hearts are racing and we're stressed about it, but it's good because we can focus on these issues that are front and center in the industry and try to at least be a part of the solution,
Speaker 3:Try to find a creative solution for those challenges that they're coming up against, for sure. And try to alleviate their anxiety.
Speaker 2:You know, the other thing, as far as directing it to what needs your attention? You know, me, I have 500 tabs open in my brain at all times. And so I'm constantly kind of going, going from one to the other because I'm a k ind o f t hat idea person, I think of great ideas and I want to share them with you and Ellie. And then we k ind o f, b ut anxiety about things that are going on, it does help me redirect that energy into what is important now. And so it does help me because I can totally go down rabbit holes, the immediate needs of our members when I can feel t hey're anxious. Like we're doing our podcast right now. And I'm just seeing my Gmail on my other screen. I t just changing the numbers. How many emails are coming through right now. And I'm sorry to get p anicked, but it's good for me because based on what are said in those emails, that's what I need to be focusing on at this moment. Right?
Speaker 3:Because you are the customer success, right, right. That is your job.[inaudible] that I feel that business owners are having right now. And this isn't just flower shop owners and that's employees. It's trying to get people to be able to help them in their shop situations. And I had a call yesterday and she was just like, I don't know what to do. I mean, I cannot find a designer. And I drove back to our webinar that we talked about desire. Over-design, you know, find somebody who has a desire to work and to desire to please people and has a little bit of creativity. And they're trainable at that point. That is a huge anxiety with shops right now is to try to find somebody who can come in and help them.
Speaker 2:No, I agree. And it's not even just designers. It's front of the shop, it's delivery drivers. It's all of that. And I think my advice to shops is first of all, take a deep breath, write out what is it? You are looking for like this specifically, what are your needs? And don't waiver from that. These are your needs. Anytime y ou t alked to somebody or you have an interview, make sure if they can't meet these specific requirements, because what happens is a lot of these people get hired because you're panicked anyway, you're desperate. And they fail. I know in that webinar, we talked about t hat. I t, that i t was like a n 89% of people that get hired end up failing it's because they didn't quite know your expectations.
Speaker 3:Right? Yeah. Don't just get a warm body. Right. It's that it really does cause anxiety. And I'm trying to think what else in a shop is causing that. Now I know you and cam you both were talking about conversations with shops and how busy they are.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You know, it's, it's been so weird. Well, everything's weird. Now the last two or three weeks, we'll call a shop and a flower click member. And some of them are not members, but we'll call them. They're like, ah, I don't have time to talk right now. A nd they're so busy. I'm like, yay. You're busy, but they're not yanking me back. Like normal. They're like so excited. I w eren't so happy. W e're busy. I think F onda, I think a lot of it's because really from March, especially April on when they could be essential going n onstop, they have l ike usually, you know, July, let's just say they just hear crickets. It was not like that.
Speaker 3:No, there were shops with record numbers in July and August. Right.
Speaker 2:Club members and non like across the board. And I think again, just like a crisis where our bodies are used to sustaining a short-lived fast paced world and then having a little bit of a break. And I don't know that we've really had a break.
Speaker 3:Right. And that's tough on somebody because I lived in the flower shop. Right. I've been in was like, you are busy from the minute you open the door till you close times and then hours after that during those busy times. But you look forward to kind of a slow day when you can breathe. And yeah. Okay. Now let's clean up the shop a little bit. Right? Let's do a few things that need to be done around here. And I don't think they had that break this summer.
Speaker 2:They didn't, they didn't even with all of the weddings that got postponed, right. Again, these are just theories. According to Vonda and Laurie and our experience with conversations we've had with shop owners. But I suspect it's because they're used to having a little bit of a downtime. I talked to so many shops that even on their day off, if it's, if they're closed on Sundays, a lot of them go into catch up healthy that that's not, I know in your mind, do you think that's good because I won't be so stressed on Monday that you never had a break
Speaker 3:[inaudible] but Lori, one thing that you don't understand, you always say that you didn't have a break, but if you own a flower shop and this is your life, it's actually like, when people say, Oh, I have a hobby and I'm going to go do this. Yeah,
Speaker 2:No, you're right. It's the hobby.
Speaker 3:It's the life. It's like, we enjoy doing that. Most of the time, sometimes shop owners enjoy going in on Sunday because they love their space. They love all of that. Then they are just so happy to have a quiet, independent, who just sit in silence. Even though they're doing something.
Speaker 2:My, my sister way back when her kids were little, she owned a consignment shop. Um, in her little town in Kansas, it was something she had always wanted to do. And she would always go in on Sundays to do payroll and to get, you know, pricing because you know, you gotta filters. Anyway. I just remember feeling so sorry for her that she's having to work seven days because Sarah was a stay at home. Mom, my world revolved around my kids. You know, it hit me like took me a while, but it hit me. Oh my gosh. She's a little bit in the dream. She can sell her husband. I'm sorry. After church, I got to go into my business. You got to keep the kids. They're three and four. You know that age. I totally get now why she did that. Yeah. So it's on the radio. She would just, just have a little piece.
Speaker 3:And so that's what shop owners sometimes do. So yes. Good to get away and get a break. And sometimes you can do that, but it's not a bad thing if you can't
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:We have down why anxiety can work to your advantage. And it's really because it's a fear, it's a reaction to fear. It directs what you need to really, to focus your attention on. But also it gives you that energy necessary to make it happen. I mean, as you said, it's an adrenaline rush. It's like, Oh my gosh, I've got to get this done. Now. Some people it works opposite. Right. That can leave them paralyzed and go. I don't know what to do now.
Speaker 2:Yes. You writing something down. Yeah. Right. So you and I, I think are fortunate in that when our anxiety comes upon us at four 30 in the morning, I don't know if it's fortunate or not, because then I never go back to sleep. I'm wide awake. And I'm like, I got to either go write this down or I have to go start packing or I have to go, do you know, I have to go physically labor so I can wear myself out or think I'm doing something. But for some people they're paralyzed in fear. I almost gave an example, but I won't, it's a family member. And I'm like, I'm not going to throw her under the bus. But when anxiety hits that the person I'm thinking of, they do the opposite. And it does make me feel sad for them. I don't know the answer. Except in both cases, writing down your thoughts, getting those thoughts deposited onto paper from your brain is going to be helpful.
Speaker 3:And like you said, then you can look and see if it's rational or not.
Speaker 2:Yes. Yeah. I've told you before that, you know, I, I am big on writing things down and then I will go back and look at them later and it does one or two things for me. I'll go back and go, okay. I did start working on that. And I see a light at the end of the tunnel and that was valid or I'll go back and I'm like, what the hell was I th inking a b out t h is? Number one, I have no control over it. And number two, it didn't even affect my life. Why did I let it come in and pick me up? So right. And again, nobody ever sees these they're just yours. So they can be as crazy as you want them to be. Right.
Speaker 3:That's right. Exactly. You write down your thoughts. I just write down this list. One, two, three, four, I have a checklist and you write down the more emotional side of it,
Speaker 2:Right. More of an essay. And then I go back and Mark those so stupid. What is wrong with me?
Speaker 3:So now we've identified a few things that anxiety can do, but what happens if we're feeling that anxiety, like you sometimes say your heart's racing or you're just feeling overwhelmed. There's a few little things that once you know, what that trigger is, what you can do to help alleviate that like on the spot or try to get past it. Right?
Speaker 2:So I think something you said there is very important. What are your triggers? My suggestion again, because this is the thing I do. I know my triggers really well. I've had to write those down and be very aware of years and years and years ago. I mean, that was like marriage counseling, one Oh one, even pr e-marriage. An d w hen you had to go to premarital counseling an d i t's, you know, each other's triggers, so my husband can tell me what my triggers are an d a s king m y children, but write those down and memorize. An d y ou have to be your best resource when the anxiety hits to know what to do with those feelings. So if I'm being triggered, I need to be aware consciously th at s omething that I just saw on the news or on social media or something that a customer said to me that triggered me, this is n't m y trigger. So the reality of this being true and I don't know yet, ca use i t's just me. She re cognize t hat what I think I've told you before I take a walk or I go outside and get a change of scenery for just a minute and pr ocessing, give yourself a minute before you react.
Speaker 3:That's so important. You know, it was the old count to 10 or whatever. What that trigger was when you were saying that, I was like, what was one of my triggers when I was in the shop? And it was a couple of things. One is when my employees were standing around just doing nothing. That is a huge trigger for a business owner. And I would have to just take a deep breath. Yeah. I m e a n, l ike you said, give it a minute and your mind is thinking, okay, what is it that I want them to be doing? Because maybe they don't have any orders. What can I say constructively to get them to go now, right now, I would say most shops, aren't having that problem. Right? Knowing that trigger and what you can do about it is really, really important. Right? We we re talking about getting away from something or getting walking outside for a minute, whatever. We have the ability in working in a flower shop to have the power, to do that. If we just take it that beautiful Rose that's in front of you, that maybe you're going to throw away because it's blown open. Look at it, Lori, my gosh, look in the center of that Rose or find something that's really fragrant and really inhale the beauty of it's just like, okay, okay. It helps you really refocus and say, this is what's important. I have this beauty that God has given me right in front of me. Right. Take it in. And now let's look at what we can get past right now we can do this because we've taken that minute.
Speaker 2:You a minute to get a little perspective. Are my feelings valid? Or is this just a trigger that has been a trigger of mine since I was a child, you know, like, where does this come from? Okay, I'm going to share a story with you and I can do this and I'm going to embarrass myself, but I'll tell you what one of my triggers is still is. And I don't know where it came from, but I had not even been married four months, maybe new bride, again, barely 24 years old. So in my mind I was old, but I was not. I was making homemade potato soup. I love potato soup. My mom always made it. My grandma always made it and I was making b utter e ggs. I f I was not a great cook, you know, I love to cook and it's kind of a therapy. So I was making potato soup and I was in the midst of making it. And my husband came home from work. My newlywed has been, and here I am j ust i n cute little wife. He goes, w hat'd you make? And I can make him t ake t he s oup. And he comes over and he looks at it, you know, as I'm cooking. And he goes, that's not how my m omma makes potato soup.
Speaker 3:Ooh, never, never.
Speaker 2:I didn't take a minute. Like we just had, we're encouraging people to do because keep in mind, I didn't know. This was a trigger site. It was not, I didn't have great self-awareness I took the entire pot of potato soup and dumped it down the sink. Oh. And I said, well, maybe your mom can make you dinner tonight.
Speaker 3:And Ooh. And
Speaker 2:My poor husband had no idea what he had said, why he just thought, Oh my gosh, she's crazy.
Speaker 3:Wow. Yeah. And here's the thing. I love
Speaker 2:My mother-in-law. It wasn't anything about her. I had her and I'll tell you, she does make really good potato soup. And she knows that story. And she knew the minute she heard that like, Oh, you don't say that.
Speaker 3:Right. He didn't know
Speaker 2:That. For some reason that triggered me because what I heard was not what he said. Right. Oh, that's not how my mom makes. And what I heard is I only liked my mom's soup. Yours is mad.
Speaker 3:So that's why we have to take the minute. It's like, because if you would have a spot for just one minute, L ori, you still had that soup.
Speaker 2:Yes. I think of 52 year old, Lori, if he says that, now I would to go then donate it and keep making it. Cause I want the soup. I'm secure enough to be able to do that. But clearly it wasn't. So that's my confession to you.
Speaker 3:There we go. There was the confession. Hopefully we've given some really good ideas on how to deal with that. Anxiety in business, things come up all the time. It's just knowing the triggers. And it's knowing how to react to those triggers that will get you through, you know, the anxiety is going to get you. So you find a solution, the container situation, the flower situation, you're going to be proactive. You're going to get things ordered. You're going to get ready for that upcoming holiday. So it's going to help you in that sense, but little things that are causing you, bigger anxiety. Sometimes take time to just breathe through them or walk away from the situation.
Speaker 2:Right. That's good advice. One other thing that helps me sometimes is if I start feeling anxious or worrisome or thinking, gosh, you know, how is this going to get any better or poor me do something outside of yourself. It's hard now. Like I would go serve at our church or, you know, go volunteer at the food pantry, go do things a t night. I know it's a lot harder to do that right now, but there are ways last week was pedal at forward. Right. A nd I love seeing all o f the shops, not as many that normally do it, did it, but the shops that did, I'm telling you what, the smiles on their faces in the pictures, it just made my heart so happy because they did, they got o ut and they all had their masks on. And y ou k now, somebody had gloves and w ere like passing over the things t hat I just loved it because they got outside of themselves in this hard life we're living right now. We did something for others and I just can't help. But think that really is the best medicine
Speaker 3:Is truly are. You're exactly right. I actually have been over helping my 90 year old neighbor rebuild ed. Yes, your buddy tomorrow. Actually we have a date to rebuild his dock, so we're going to offer and do some work, but yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, and that's going to give you so much life you're helping and it's physical you physical labor.
Speaker 3:I do. I love the physical labor. So that was actually what's giving me life. So I kind of jumped ahead. So what's keeping me alive is thinking about really helping tomorrow and getting, like you said, outside of myself and really being able to help and rebuild.
Speaker 2:I love that. I love that. Um, what's giving me life is my daughter surprised us and shown DOR yesterday afternoon. We knew she was coming home. I think she was going to come up today. She was very iffy. You know, she doesn't like to be tied down, but I was actually at a doctor's appointment and I see my ring notification phone and I pull it up because I'm like, who's at my door. Bailey. Is that you? And she's like, where is everybody? But thankfully my is here who had to come unlock the door. So, sorry. I didn't know you were coming. I was cries. Yeah. So I have Bailey home and this is Reese's last weekend home before we'd venture out. So it'll be fun. At least I have two of the three. I don't know. I might have to go to an orphanage and get some kids, but we'll figure that out later. That's all right. That'll be another time you can tell us about the MTV, a nother podcast, another podcast, but right now, just rest and knowing you'll have b ow. Yes, I do have my, I always have my codependent dog. We'll talk to you later. Okay. We have certainly enjoyed our time together today and we look forward to being with you guys again, if you have any questions, concerns, comments, anything we would love to hear from you. You can always email Laurie at flower, click.com. Also, if you enjoy our little podcast, go ahead and click that subscribe button. That's very helpful for us. And you can even leave a review and we hope you join us next week. Yes. So please come back and join us and discover how a bit of knowledge and one small change in your mindset can take you to new levels in your life and business.
Speaker 1:[inaudible].