Emma: [00:00:00] Welcome to a very special episode of Tea with the Queen. You know when we have those friends who spark joy or we know that they're super bright? Well, today on the podcast you'll hear an interview between two friends, business friends, friends, clients of each other, an amazing relationship built. Off Instagram.
My friend, Tracey Mylechrane and I, we recorded a podcast episode. We recorded one last year about a similar topic called the glide or the grind. Now we both recognize coming from corporate backgrounds that sometimes you grind to the end of the year. And we were [00:01:00] determined last year not to do that. And we recorded an episode last year, and then we've just checked back in to see how that's gone.
This episode will give you some tips Additional hints and tips and some vulnerability from both of us about what to expect in terms of gliding, us gliding to the end of the year rather than grinding. Now, depending on when you listen to this, it's not too late for you. At the beginning of the year, if you are wondering about working out how to glide to the end of the year, a plan is always good.
A very basic plan on things that give you joy. Pockets in time that give you joy. Right now I'm drinking a beautiful cup of tea from a beautiful mug. And I wanted to share with you that Tracey and I are on a mission. A mission to help you know that you, if we can do it, so can you. I hope you enjoy this episode with Tracey and myself.
Tracey: [00:02:00] Emma McQueen. Let's talk.
Emma: Here we go. Oh, I love I love sharing this space with you.
Tracey: We talked about this time last year on the podcast around how you and I framed the difference between gliding and grinding. And gosh, that was good.
Emma: So good. Set up my year.
Tracey: Well, me too. And what I love about podcasting, because we talk about this all the time with our respective podcasts is people can jump in and out whenever they want. So they go back and listen, they take away what resonates, they leave what doesn't. And I know that our conversation last year around the glide and the grind has been listened to by many throughout the year. So what a fabulous time to come back and talk more about how we've applied it. And for me, especially how I have integrated it and developed my working processes in my business around the glide or [00:03:00] grind. Last year, we hit everybody up straight out and said, it doesn't have to be a grind to the end of the year and you don't have to do the crawl, you know, the crawl to the finish line.
Oh my gosh, we're almost there. And then I'm going to crawl and I'm going to collapse and the holidays are going to be not wasted, but not as rejuvenating as what they could be because business owners are spending so much time picking themselves up and recovering from the grind only to then turn around, blink and say, Oh, I've got to go back to work now.
Emma: Yeah. that.
Well, I hope everyone paid attention and did something to help themselves last year. Do you think they did?
Tracey: I I do think that they did because I don't know about you, but I'm fielding far less conversations at the moment where people are worn out. Far less.
Emma: Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. If I think about it. I am too. There are still some people who, for a variety of reasons, are feeling like they have to grind to the end of the year, but I do think they're few and far between compared to last [00:04:00]
Tracey: I think so too. And certainly the years before that I feel were really intense because it almost seems like for so long, it was a badge of honour to be so exhausted and so busy and so burnt out come the end of the year, but everyone's doing their part to defuse that and to flip it on its head and to do away with wearing a badge of honour that celebrates busy stress and burnout.
So I don't think that exists to the extent that it used to. That said, I still do think that people have a way to go, but The badge of honour is not there, but what I'm feeling is being celebrated now is easefulness and spaciousness because we're asking the questions. I know you ask the questions a lot, but we're asking the questions, what does success look like for you?
Emma: Yes. Because it looks like different for everyone, right? Like this year, success was no travel.
Tracey: Yeah, that's right. For me, this year's success has been about slow mornings. And [00:05:00] I've gotten
Emma: You nailed
Tracey: that.
I have. I really have. And I prioritise my morning walk now, as you know, because you often hear from me at that time, but I prioritise that. And it's not even a question in my mind anymore, should I go or shouldn't I go? I just go.
Emma: Yes, you've already made the decision.
Tracey: Gosh, it's been hard. It's been hard to prioritise that because for so long it felt really selfish and indulgent because it was time for me. But with the lead up to the end of the year, the conversations I'm having with people are around forward planning, and getting really excited around forward planning.
So something I've done this year for the first time is I have treated September as the beginning of quarter 4 which kind of mucks with my OCD. I don't really have OCD, but it's self self diagnosed OCD. I really am that obsessively organi sed. so I might be, but I don't know, there's nothing wrong with it.
So it kind of mucks with my brain in that respect. But I treated September as the beginning of quarter [00:06:00] four, because December's always a bit all over the place in terms of less enthusiasm to be doing the work or out and about doing more things. And the weather's really lovely and oh gosh, there's all these clients that need things last minute.
So it really is a bit ad hoc ish. So a big change for me, which has set me up to glide to the end of of the year has been reframing what quarter four looks like. So you're not smashed at the end of it. So it starts winding down really nicely. What about you?
Emma: I like that. Well, I mean, now you've named your OCD, what I'm about to say is going to make so much sense to you because we plan 2025 in July. The reason we had to do that is because as you know, we had Day With the Queen, which is that big production we do every two years. And that's in September. And that's when we release the Thriving Women details. And so our planning always needs to be done at that [00:07:00] time of the year also, because by now, I don't know that I have that much decision making capability left in me, and I'm, I'm pretty sure that's the same for other business owners as well.
Also, after 3 o'clock on any given day, I also do not have any decision making ability in me. So I know if I make a decision after 3, it's probably going to be a terrible decision. Need to remake that tomorrow. So one of my glide things is let's not make any decision after three o'clock.
If it's after three o'clock, even if it's the smallest decision, let's just park it for the next day. It can wait. And so we did our 2025 planning in July, and a couple of weeks ago, I went away and did some more deep thinking for 2025, just to make sure that we're all good, but that does help me to go, right, how do I glide to the end of the year and not feel like I'm being lastminute.com which I have a lot of potential to be lastminute.com, just ask Serena, because she's my lovely business manager and sometimes I do come out with ideas that are lastminute.com, but the beautiful thing [00:08:00] about being planned is that you've got space in there to be able to do that as well.
Tracey: Oh, I love that. You said that Em. Spaciousness is one of my two words for 2025. I just landed on it, spaciousness. And you're integrating that to have spaciousness every day.
By not making decisions after three. I think that's just a bit of genius. Just quietly. I love that. What I'm hoping listeners are getting from this is that the glide or grind, it's a choice, but how you set yourself up for it is so important.
And off the back of our conversation last year, I have been revisiting glide or grind regularly throughout the entire year. So what I realised was, If I want to make sure that I am consistently setting myself up to glide through to the end of the year, it requires work throughout the year. It's not something I can just do it November and go, right, now I'm going to do these things and I won't be grinding.
The penny dropped at the end of last year when we were having a conversation and [00:09:00] just by going back to it regularly and making changes and tweaks to the day to day. Like what you've just said, you don't make decisions after three, and that creates spaciousness for you because you've got time to think and process.
And then you can introduce new ideas and the lovely Serena will do all of her magic and execute them for you. I thought I was a bit obsessive because I've planned 2025, but I've only just finished planning 2025 and we're midway through November. So that's pretty good going, but you've just beat me because you planned it in July. So you win on that one.
Emma: When you said I'm being OCD and then you said that I'm like, Oh my goodness, she's going to just think I'm wacko now.
Tracey: That's next level, even for me, impressive, but next, next level. But again, it's creating spaciousness and it's setting you up so that you're not left that that frantic duck on water struggling, you know, below the surface to do all the things at the last minute. [00:10:00] And I think that people can find their own happy medium in there to take away and do that, but it's regular. The quarter to quarter, if you're feeling exhausted and burnt out and stressed and like you're grinding and it's all a hustle, then that's your very big telltale sign that something's not working. And each time I fell into a pocket of that through the year, where I felt not overwhelmed, don't do overwhelmed, but where I felt that there was just too much on my plate and there was just too much of the wrong thing.
So it was lacking joy. I would pause and think to myself, well, What's working? What's not working? This doesn't feel good. Why doesn't it feel good? And for me, that meant letting go of some clients at certain times. It didn't feel good. It wasn't aligned just about every single one of those times. It was when I went against my instincts in taking someone on because I thought, Oh, I don't feel like we're aligned.
So rather than just saying no, which I do readily say no to people, if I don't feel like I can add value, if I feel they'd be better served elsewhere, I will [00:11:00] say no, but the times that I went against my instincts and said, yes, were the times that I would find myself ending up in this situation, which felt like hustle. It out felt balance. It felt like grind, but if I didn't take stock and pause each time that was happening, I wouldn't be able to sit here and have this beautifully relaxed conversation about gliding into the end of the year. Cause I would have been burnt out and stressed.
Emma: I
Tracey: it's a year-long thing.
Emma: Yeah, it's a year long thing, but it's, I don't know how many business owners really genuinely think, what does my gut tell me about this? It might not just be about clients. It might be about anything. It might be something comes up in your business planning process. Actually, how do I feel about that?
Does that thing actually give me energy? Or we're just doing the same thing because we've always done it that way. You know, like it's a chance to go, actually, let's just stop and take stock. And I think the other thing that you mentioned, which was joy. I don't see many people having a lot of joy in their business.
Like you can [00:12:00] still be a professional woman in business and have joy. Like those two things can sit together. And as you know, because I love joy. I am joy. I'm sunshine. Yeah.
Tracey: Yes, you are. Yes, you are.
Emma: I deliberately go out and choose things that give me joy. You know, I think last year I spoke about my roller skating.
I'm still doing roller skating cause I'm, you know, I love it. And I do things that give me joy, but it doesn't have to be a massive thing. It just could be a nice warm cup of tea on a sunny day. It could be sitting outside staring at the clouds. Like it doesn't have to be big things, but like, my friend, Lisa, she says, where do I find pockets of joy throughout the day? And I love that idea because you can find 10 seconds to breathe or 20 seconds to do something that just gives you that little bit of joy. I ran a workshop a couple of weeks ago and we were talking about actually, how do we build resilience? And we're talking about building connections, making connections, and I made everyone pull their phone out and send a nice little text message to someone that [00:13:00] they've been thinking about and the ripple effect that that makes and the joy that that brings to others is joy that comes back to us tenfold because we've done it. So I think something about just making sure that you focus on having little pockets of joy in your day every day kind of helps you glide to the end of the year throughout the year as well.
Tracey: Oh, I love that. All of that. ripple effect, it's so powerful, right? And I think it does, I think you've just nailed something there because what that does then, the flow on effect is, is many, but one of the things that it does is it means that we're not hanging out to have two or three weeks of joy over December and January.
We actually have joy in the day to day or the week to week or month to month, whatever that might look like. So the pressure and expectation to have everything wrapped up and to achieve all of these things before the end of the year, it dissolves. Because I love [00:14:00] the festive season. I find there's loads of joy at that time of year, but I also have lots of joy throughout the year too.
So there's less pressure on the end of year festive season. Taking from that, setting yourself up for success, making sure that we're doing more of the aligned things, making sure we're prioritising ourselves, making sure we're peppering through sprinkles of joy daily, weekly, monthly, whatever that looks like, all of a sudden, just in doing that, the wrong things start falling away. So whether it's a client that's not aligned or whether it's an activity that you're begrudgingly doing, it can fall away and introduce things that are the right things. And then what that does to energy levels I've noticed, and I've been talking to clients about this as well. Energy's not depleted. So we're sitting here now, mid November, energy's not depleted. If this was me 10 years ago, holy dooly, it would have been a very different [00:15:00] story. Exhaustion, fatigue, bitter, tired, resentment, because the Christmas parties are coming up, but the expectations of delivery are exactly the same.
So now you've got more to fit in in less. Every second person, you know, says, Oh, we must catch up before Christmas. So you're cramming even more things in and it's just awful and stressful. It's just awful and stressful. There's no, and that's all low vibing. All of that obligation and fatigue and resentment.
That's what it would have been like.
Emma: Yeah, I've got JOMO this year, Trace. The joy missing out.
Tracey: I love that.
Emma: I don't have FOMO, I've got JOMO. Some clients have said to me the other day, what's the new calendar? I'm like, nothing. And they're like, what do you mean nothing? I'm like, I have said no to every single thing
in my calendar, that is not a necessity, because like you, you know, school stuff happens, we need to do all the things, everyone's trying to wrap up, everyone's trying to do the whole, oh, we should catch up.
We've not caught up for the rest of the year, so why is Christmas any different? [00:16:00] Even yesterday. I ran into a friend yesterday, a very good friend, haven't seen her for ages, and I'm like, hey, and I stopped myself from saying, we shall catch up over Christmas. I was like, it's very nice to see you. Bye. I feel good about that.
Tracey: But that's powerful. That's so powerful. It's so powerful and it's creating spaciousness and you will catch up organically when the time is right. I love that you've said that about JOMO because that's really what I'm, what I'm harnessing in this household, which I just didn't realize that that's what it was called, but I'm going to declare it that now to the kids later today.
But we're doing a staycation this year, so there's, there's very little travel. There's a few little pockets of trips here and there, but they're very small, very insignificant that requires zero planning and brain space on my behalf. So therefore I'm not factoring that in, but there's no big travel and this obligation and that, go here and see that there's none of that. It's all very light.
So we're doing staycation. And I feel empowered and inspired because I'm [00:17:00] saying to myself, Holy dooly. This is what it feels like to be so graciously spacious at this time of year, to be so delightfully peaceful heading into the end of the year. And I'm enjoying every single contract I'm drafting, as I always do. Traditionally it'd get to the end of the year
and I'd start feeling, Oh, I'm not really enjoying this. There's too many or there's too much. I've got tight deadlines. No, no, I'm loving it now. Just as much as I do every other time of the year, every client call is a delight.
So we got here though, Em, because it's not something you do halfway through November, make a few changes to get into the glide. So that's what I really want listeners to take away that yes, we spoke about this last year. Yes, people will have dipped in and out to the podcasts and have heard it at some point throughout the year.
And here we are again, a year on, delightfully peaceful, delightfully spacious. Emma's just full of joy and sunshine at this time of year, because it's been a work in progress and it's not set and forget. And we always need to check in with [00:18:00] ourselves.
Emma: Well, and what I would say is if you're listening to this thinking, I don't know why I didn't listen to you girls, naughty, listen to us next time. But also maybe take at the end of the year, once the festivities are over in January, it's a little bit quieter, maybe work on your glide or grind plan. Like start in January and go, what am I going to do on the daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, that's going to give me a little bit of joy and going to enable me to not feel like I've got nothing left at the end of the year. Because if you set yourself up for success in January, then you can keep looking at that plan, keep tweaking the plan. The first year you'll get it half right, which is all that you can expect.
And then you kind of tweak as you go. And then you add in things and you take out things and you move things around. But I reckon if you're going to spend a little bit of a couple of days in January doing that, I think you'd be really well off.
Tracey: Part of my setting myself up for success in the new year started, like I said, I used September as the first month for quarter [00:19:00] four and my work for the new year started then. And I want to share, Em, something that we both did. You ran it. Thank you to you, but I want to talk about the BD sprint that you ran.
It was very, off the cuff, you just leaned in, trusted the instinct and ran the most brilliant challenge that I was a part of. And you called it the BD Sprint, which I loved. Business Development Sprint. And that has really set the scene and focus for me going into my BD plans for 2025. The reason I want to talk about it here is because I know you're going to do it again.
And it was so valuable. It was so great. I cannot recommend this to any business owner more highly. And I don't do this stuff. I'm not the joiner. I don't join all the things. I actually don't. So I sit back. Emma said, why don't you do it? And I said, Oh, all right, maybe I will. And gosh, I'm glad I did. Talk about that.
So it was great. It was fabulous. I got real value out of it. Real value, but talk about it, Em, share with our listeners what it is [00:20:00] because I think you said you want to do the next one in February and the timing is perfect.
Emma: Yeah, so the BD Sprint came about, uh, it was just so random. It could have been so inconvenient, but remember me saying that I, because I plan so far in advance, I have space. Anyway, we had been doing it with our Thriving Women gang for a couple of weeks, the BD Sprint. So this came off the back of my keynote at Day with the Queen, which was, I've been doing an hour of business development a day for seven years.
When you add those hours up, that's a lot of hours and the proof is in the pudding, right? And so I said to them, Hey, let's do a challenge anyway. And then some of my email lists said, I'm not a Thriving Woman, but can you do this? And I thought to myself, can I? Yeah, yeah, I can. And so automatically we had 55 women sign up to this thing.
And it was very low tech because you know, I'm not tech savvy all the time, but I just wanted people to feel that BD could be fun and you could Uh, connect with people on LinkedIn and Instagram and have real [00:21:00] connections. And you could do that and you could do it with ease. And I think having a whole community turned in the same direction is probably what made it awesome.
And what I realized is there was a lot of business done in those two weeks. We did it for 10 days straight and there was a lot of business and people had to check in each day. And I think it really people a purpose. And so doing in February is going to set everyone up for success for the year.
And, you know, I talked about the ripple effect before, the ripple effect of that many people joining in, and it just gave me so much joy, Trace. I am a nerd. I'm a sales nerd. I'll admit I am a sales nerd. So I was like, yeah, I'll jump in and I'll give them a tip and I'll do a round out. And, and then I thought to myself, do I have enough tips?
Like do I have 10 tips? I don't know, maybe. So
Tracey: yes. You have more than you 10 times 10. I would say you come up with.
Emma: Yes, maybe. So anyway, so we ran it and it just took the scariness of business development out for people and they [00:22:00] had fun with it and there was some amusing failings and you know, like we were all just on the same page doing the same work, getting it done and I think that that has set people up for success now through to the end of the year.
And then I went, let's do it again. So we'll do it again in February and see what see what happens.
Tracey: Oh, that's really exciting. for people to know that. It was part of the glide to the end of the year for me, because it was a really big ticket item that was something I had been wanting to focus on more readily in my business, because I love the client work. I love the client work and I get immersed in the client work and I happily get all consumed with the client work, but the working on the business and the business development is something that I would always leave to fall to the wayside. I'll fit it in later. I'll fit it in later. But this was really intentional and targeted in terms of my time and I've continued it on and I'll continue to continue it on, but it set me up for success because it was a big thing that I kept putting off. I'll do it [00:23:00] next year. I'll do it next year. So now that pressure of next year is not there. It's already implemented and integrated and I'll continue to tweak it and improve it. And what I loved is you created a container where people could learn from you. And I will share very quickly one of my learnings, which was when I did something, which Emma had been talking about, I felt that it was really gross.
I felt it was just salesy. Oh my gosh, who wants to hear from me. This feels gross. And I shared in the container, I just did this it feels gross, but I'll just keep doing it because I'm challenging myself. Well, Emma McQueen dived in and said, hang on, let's turn this around. It's not supposed to feel like that.
And I was able to just in the space of half an hour, work through it, reframe it, get clear on what it's not. And oh, my gosh, the amount of people that have given me feedback to love the way I'm doing certain things. I did away with that, but I've been sitting on that for years. So that's what that's just one of the learnings of this container.
And I just honestly can't recommend it highly enough. So back to the glide or grind, it doesn't have to be a grind. We don't have to be getting to this time of year thinking, gosh, [00:24:00] where are the clients going to come from? Gosh, what am I going to be doing next year? Holy dooly. Doesn't have to be like that.
We've just shared stories. I've shared really vulnerably some of my failings, but I've shared so that listeners can be going, okay, that's a nugget of gold. I'm going to take it. Thanks so much. Business development, Tracey. I don't do that either. Maybe I need to go and check out Emma McQueen's BD Sprint if it's that good. Maybe I need to take some nuggets from that and see what the ripple effect is.
But here we are again, at this time of year, big smiles, full of joy and sunshine in Emma's case, we're gliding. We're gliding again. We're not grinding and everyone can do it. It just takes work. So I think we will definitely come back this time next year and check in and see where we're, where we're headed Em, and what else we've got to offer.
But I really hope that listeners can take away even just one or two little nuggets of gold and things that they can implement in their business right now to move the needle a little bit more towards the glide.
Emma: Oh yeah. And even if they went, what's my little pocket of joy today? [00:25:00] And that's all that they take. You know, that's awesome because it makes you think about what is it that's actually going to genuinely give me a little bit of joy today. Cause sometimes it's rough, right?
Tracey: That's never going to stop. That'll never go away.
Emma: That's right. But if you've got your little pocket of joy, you kind of sitting there, pretty. So good Trace. It's so good to be chatting about it because I think some of this stuff we don't talk about, we don't talk about how we don't like BD. We don't talk about how we give the dregs to our family. We don't talk about all the things that can just get in the way. And so it's so nice to have a conversation with, you know, I think you might be my smartest, my smartest friend. I might be your most joyful but you're my smartest for sure.
Tracey: We play to our strengths.
Emma: And, um, and just know that, you know, if we can do glide or grind and we can make choices around glide, how do you, our beautiful listeners actually make choices around [00:26:00] gliding as well? Cause we want you to do it with us.
Tracey: Love it. Thanks, Em. Thanks for the chat. We'll do another one soon.
Emma: Beautiful. Take it easy.
