Emma: [00:00:00] let's be honest, running a business, managing life and keeping all the balls in the air, it can be a lot. Are you with me? And sometimes the only thing, the only thing standing between me and complete burnout, my clients and complete burnout, is a good book. Or a block of chocolate. Or a cup of tea.
Or completely unnecessary online shopping. Just me? Maybe just me. Anyway, today we're talking about the little guilty pleasures that keep us sane. Because let's face it. A well rested woman is a very powerful woman. So grab your tea or your wine, no judgment here, and let's dive straight in. Here are a couple of guilty pleasures that helped me unwind.
What I will say before I start is I tested this out the other day. I was so engrossed in a beautiful piece of work. I'm currently putting together a roadmap. The roadmap will help women get from 0 to 100, 000. It is complete with slides and a workbook. [00:01:00] And I was so engrossed in getting this done. I've been working on it for some time.
I can't wait to share it with the world, but I spent a good six hours on it and I didn't finish until eight o'clock at night. Now that was okay. Family were fine. It was all good. But what I realized is I slept terribly that night because I was still so engaged. And so. I have had to introduce these guilty pleasures to help me.
Yeah. There's also a beautiful book by Dr. Adam Fraser called The Third Space. And that's about allowing time between tasks or moments or meetings. And I find it very useful when I'm doing a lot of coaching. So if I've got five coaching sessions in a day, normally they're Zoom calls. After each one, I kind of have to shake it off.
almost reset my brain a bit so that I don't take whatever has happened in one meeting into another. So if you're wondering how to make that switch, The Third Space is a brilliant book. I will also say my first guilty pleasure will be of no surprise to you at [00:02:00] all. It is romance novel with a side of sass.
I love them. Nothing quite like a good rom com where the heroine is fierce, of course, and the banter is snappy. And the happy ending is guaranteed. I am a sucker. Ever since having children, I cannot read crime. I cannot read thriller. You know, it's gotta be happy, happy, happy. And what I think that's one of the reasons that my mindset is so positive, optimistic, let's call it Pollyanna, day in, day out, because I don't feed it with negative stuff or stuff that's heavy.
I like to keep it nice and bright. A One of the series of books that I love is a series called Before the Coffee Gets Cold. And it's this beautiful heartwarming series. It's a bittersweet book because it's set in a small Tokyo cafe. Obviously it's fiction. The visitors get the chance to travel back in time under one condition.
They have to return before the coffee gets cold. there's love, there's loss, there's [00:03:00] second chances. There's a whole stack of stuff. And each story has a lot of characters in it that you have to kind of remember, but it's about human connections and the moments that we wish we could relive. And that's really stuck with me.
I think there's like five books in the series and I love that series. It's made me think about if I could go back in time, just for the length of a coffee, it's not a lot of time, is it? Who would I visit? Who would I speak to? And what would I say? What about you? If you could go back in time, just play with me for a moment.
If you could go back in time, who would you visit and what would you say? and if there's something that needs to be said, let's say it now. Yeah. Let's not wait. I'm in a book club. I love my book club. I have been in a book club for going on 20 years. think there's a 10 of us in total.
We've had one of us pass away. they have been with me when I've been single, when I got married, when I had babies, they are. A beautiful group of women. [00:04:00] I love my book club and we met very recently and, it just reminded me of the camaraderie of being together for a long time now in my book club. we do not all read the same book.
We are very proud to not read the same book. So what happens at my book club is obviously there's a lot of conversation about life and, you know, transitions and all that kind of stuff, but. Everyone brings a book to speak about. Someone takes notes, and they're sassy.
Those notes are so sassy. I love them to bits. And she takes notes of all the books that people read and then we get a copy of those notes after so we've got a bigger reading list. And these women, they are ferocious readers. I turned up the other day and I'm like, oh, I've been a bit busy. I actually have only read business books and I hate bringing business books to book club.
I'm like, eh, I'm a self help. addict. I love those books. If you look at the shelf behind me, if you're watching this on YouTube, you will see a stack of books. I love a good self help book, but I don't want to review it in book club necessarily. we catch up and we talk books and then I always have a list and it's always [00:05:00] really special when you've got a group like that of, you know, um, 10 people that you have been with for the last 20 years.
Those are some precious connections. Hey. Anyway, my next guilty pleasure, chocolate and a cup of tea. Yes. The ultimate pairing, right? preferably with zero interruptions, a cozy blanket and some kind of do not disturb sign, tea has to be hot. It has to be leafy.
It has to come out of a teapot. It has to be drunk in silence. I have a love seat out the back. of our house that my husband made. So he made it with love. It's for me. I grab my cup pot of tea. I go outside. I rug up in my blanket and I just stare into the garden. It's absolute bliss.
I'm a simple girl, everyone. I am a simple girl. My next guilty pleasure would have to be either a cheesy Feel good movie, Dirty Dancing for the Win, I'm sorry, but that's just iconic, or a good TV series. We are currently watching [00:06:00] Suits. I didn't get on to Suits in the first instance. I don't know. I miss, miss the first round.
and I have to say, sometimes I don't even understand the storyline. I've given up trying to understand and I just go with it now. Um, the other night we watched a couple of episodes and my aura ring. So I have an aura ring. I won't put my rude finger up at you, but it's a health tracker, right?
So my aura ring told me that I had a nap for two hours while I was watching that. but I love to watch a series. Ted Lasso has to be my absolute favorite. I know everyone's already watched. Ted Lasso, Emily in Paris also is one of my favorites. So I quite like the series, and they all feel good My other guilty pleasure. is online shopping, but it's online shopping with a twist. I like shopping for gadgets. No, I'm weird. I know. So my family and my friends get these weird presents because it's a gadget and I think it's going to change their lives. Uh, I'll tell you what a marketer's dream in this.
So if there's [00:07:00] anyone listening who owns a shop or something, I'm your marketer's dream. I love a good gadget and the most recent gadget I purchased was a gadget that helps you, if you can imagine, you can't, if you can't see my hands, jump onto YouTube and have a look, but it's, it looks like it's two pieces.
It's got a little middle bit in the middle and you pop a boiled egg in the middle and you press it down and it it peels the egg. Right. That was the gadget. I bought three of them. I thought this is going to change my life. Boiled egg peeler. Anyway, it did not change my life. I couldn't get it to work.
Just saying. So there's that. The other thing that I recently bought was a fake bunny. Now, this is, my daughter happened to be sitting with me while I was scrolling and this is cute little pink bunny. And if you touch it gently, it moves like a bunny. very random. I know again, marketers dream, but I love looking at stuff like that because it gives me ideas.
And also when she sits next to me, she's 11. When she sits [00:08:00] next to me, I get birthday ideas. I get Easter ideas. I get all the ideas. And so she loves that. She doesn't love my gadgets so much. In fact, none of my family, except my dad, uh, shout out dad, uh, really, really understand my. Need, I like to have the latest of things and specifically iPhones.
then I like to get all the gadgets that go with that. I don't know. It's just a weird thing. enough, tech and I don't always get on. I'm trying to get better with tech and to, to reframe that into I love tech and tech loves me. But gadgets, I'm your girl. If you've got a good gadget, send me a DM, send me a picture.
I want to see what gadgets you've got going on. So it is. online shopping, but not what you would expect. It's not clothes or makeup or anything like that. It's gadget, gadget girl. That's what I am. my last one is a long bath. a long bath to me is 20 minutes. at our recent retreat, we had someone who has a bath every night for 45 minutes.
Oh my goodness. I can't [00:09:00] stay in a bath that long, but my bath has to have bath salts in or some kind of stinky, smelly. Um, thing that falls apart in the bath or beautiful rose petals. I recently ran a retreat and there was a bath in my room and I was so excited. Not only was there a bath in the room, there was a tube of rose petals and a bath bomb.
And I'm just like, I am there. Nothing like having a long bath. I like to listen to a podcast while I have my bath. Normally my podcasts are business podcasts. Sometimes they're mindset podcasts. but they're normally business podcasts. I save my, reading my audio reading for my walks because we all know I walk, you know, a minimum of 20, 000 steps a day.
And if you're new here, I walk 20, I just love walking. I actually think it does so much for your brain box, so much for all the other bits and pieces. And it's lovely, lovely to get out into nature.
There is no shame in [00:10:00] relaxing. No shame at all. It makes me a better businesswoman. It makes me a better wife. It makes me a better human and It is an essential business strategy. Do you have some guilty pleasures that you go to that help you just be a better human, show up better? I know at the moment I'm hearing from some of my clients that they are like so tired, not doing enough things that bring them joy and create happiness, any of those kinds of things.
And I have encouraged them to find some things that give them just a little bit of joy in the middle of the day. I've got some clients who are earning really good revenue. We're talking three, four hundred, five hundred thousand dollars. And they're also taking the time to look after their brain, to look after their health and their exercise.
And the results are absolutely paying off. To learn how to relax and believe me, that is hard for [00:11:00] me because I have a busy brain, but we need to learn how to relax, switch off our brains and do some things that have nothing to do with business. It makes us better business people. I hope you've enjoyed this episode, a little bit of a guilty pleasures of Emma McQueen and I'll see you next week.
