How To Triple Your Income For 20 Hours A Week with Christine Nicholson

You can find Christine Nicholson at:
Website: https://www.businessmentoruk.com/
Email: christine@christinenicholson.co.uk
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-nicholson/

Christine Nicholson Podcast Transcription

[00:00:00] Kris Ward: Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Win The Hour, win the Day. And I am your host, Kris Ward and I am totally pumped for this today. We have a really special treat. It’s something we’ve never done before, and we’ve got Christine Nicholson in the house and let me explain what we’re gonna do. But first of all, welcome to the show, Christine.

[00:00:18] Christine Nicholson: Hi. And thank you so much for having me. I’m excited about this too.

[00:00:22] Kris Ward: Oh, good. This is a treat for me. Okay. Christine is an amazing talent in her own right, and she works with really successful businesses that are ready to sell. So she’s what we call an exit and success succession planner.

[00:00:37] That’s easy enough to say, right? And does business mentoring, so Christine, you deal with companies that you know are gonna sell for millions of dollars and you’re helping them get prepped and ready to exit. Is that correct?

[00:00:51] Christine Nicholson: Absolutely. It’s all about getting them out of the day to day, letting them hand over control and then looking at how they can transfer the ownership. So Sounds easy.

[00:01:02] Kris Ward: No it doesn’t. Does it sound easy? But what I think is fascinating is when you and I met because you are a client of mine, when you and I met you were, and I think you allow me to say this affectionately, a little bit of a hot.

[00:01:14] Christine Nicholson: Oh yeah.

[00:01:15] Kris Ward: And you, in fact, you missed the first two meetings and you wanted to work with me. But, and normally this happens, people miss the first one cuz they’re showing up, they’re outta control. And because they’re people like you where they’ve had a lot of success, they’ve got a lot of clients and they can’t keep on top of it. And you pretty much very articulately begged me to say, please, I promise this third time I’ll be on, I promise I’ll be there.

[00:01:36] And I really say, you showed up with your hair on fire and you said openly to me, Kris, look what I do for a business. How are you going to help me? This is what I do for other people. How could you possibly make a difference in my business? And you were working in insane hours. Correct?

[00:01:51] Christine Nicholson: Yep. Yep. Absolut. Absolutely.

[00:01:52] Kris Ward: Okay. All right. Now in a short period of time, you are now going away shortly after the recording of this interview for a month. You have been away several times throughout the year for weeks at a time.

[00:02:05] Christine Nicholson: Yeah.

[00:02:06] Kris Ward: You would be the first to tell me, and you’ll dive into this a little bit more, that I tell, I say my client always say they get 25 hours back a week within the first month of working with us.

[00:02:15] And you would say too, that on top of that, that has allowed you the bandwidth to double your income, so your hours decreased and your income doubled.

[00:02:24] Christine Nicholson: Oh, yeah. It’s a, it’s definitely a quadruple impact.

[00:02:28] Kris Ward: Okay, so why don’t, because it does always sound to people like, this is crazy. Everybody thinks their business is different.

[00:02:35] Like you don’t understand, Kris, I’m the one who has to do this, I have to do that, whatever. And I constantly say, business should be fun. It should support your life instead of consuming it. And I also say too, that people don’t understand that the ramifications it has on the business, how you’re choking, not just, you’re deteriorating your lifestyle, you’re adding stress to yourself, you’re also limiting your income and also you water down your profits because what is a profit if you now have to work 16 hours to make it, if somebody pays you a thousand dollars for an hour, that’s great.

[00:03:06] But if you’re working at midnight, one o’clock in the morning, that thousand dollars bleeds out really quickly. So let’s talk about some of the things that you were shocked or surprised about, or that this process enlightened you.

[00:03:20] Christine Nicholson: And I think the first thing was that I knew I needed some business support. So it wasn’t that I was saying, oh, there’s only me that can do this. I knew other people can do to, could do things. I just didn’t want to have a whole load of babies to look after. . And when I ran companies where I was employing hundreds of people and I had all the structure in place, now all of a sudden the structure is me and therefore it would be me doing the onboarding, me doing the training, me doing the nagging and the taking, making sure things got done. And I didn’t really understand what’s getting proper help and being trained how to get the help working so that it was helping me, not dragging me down.

[00:04:12] And the one thing that, this was the biggest thing, this is the thing, the key that turned the lock that allowed everything else to happen was you literally throwing some poor girl in front of me. Cause the first one, we cut the gum to be really short, but some poor girl in front of me going, will this one do?

[00:04:33] And I am understating it there, but it’s just like you weren’t taking any messing around. You need help. This is the kind of person that we think needs to help you. Let’s get into an interview within four minutes. It’s you know what? No. Let’s stop this. This isn’t working. I can see there’s no connection there. We’ll find you someone else. And already, that was not a months long process.

[00:04:58] Kris Ward: Was, I forgot about that. Let me jump in for a second. So we do hire an onboard for our clients in the Winners Circle. So what happens is we will go out and find someone for you and you get the final say. And that’s really interesting to me, Christine, because you were the only person ever that not almost a hundred percent of the time when I introduced them to someone, it was a great fit.

[00:05:14] and I didn’t think that one was a great fit, but then we found you someone two weeks later and you loved her. But it was really interesting. You’re right. I stopped it and said, no, I don’t think this is working. And that didn’t change your confidence in it, but yeah. And then we put that person in front of you because that’s what we do. And then you just rolled with it once we found the right one.

[00:05:35] Christine Nicholson: Yeah. And just knowing that the interview process, you don’t book an hour long interviewing. It’s like that is just a, it is a killer for my energy. It would’ve been a killer for hers. And so there were so many things that interview was just bang.

[00:05:49] Because what’s the really important thing? What do you like doing? What do you not like doing? What do I want you to do? And the fact is that Ricka my lady turned up at three o’clock in the morning for her interview. Yes. For our interview.

[00:06:02] Kris Ward: Cause your time don’t her done cuz your meeting with me was at that time, I do not believe that outsourcers should work overnight. We don’t do that. They can be around the morning. If you set them up independently, they don’t need to be working your full day, which is zero overnight. However, your appointment with me was scheduled, and so that’s when they had to show up for the interview. So she did. She’s in the interview, which I could not get a job as a janitor at three o’clock in the morning so yes, Rika showed up and she amazed you and it’s been a roaring success ever since, right?

[00:06:30] Christine Nicholson: Yeah. Yeah, it has. Yeah. Yeah, it has. And any wrinkles because when you’re getting to know someone, there’s always a few wrinkles but all of the wrinkles have been caused by me, me not following the processes. Me being passive, not leading. And me

[00:06:45] Kris Ward: We coached you on, so you don’t have to figure that out yourself. We pointed that out to you when there was wrinkles. It was because you were not leading and we were showing you how to instill independence with her.

[00:06:55] Christine Nicholson: And that again, that moved things on.

[00:06:59] Kris Ward: Yeah.

[00:06:59] Christine Nicholson: So much quicker than would otherwise have done. And the calls with you that I had regular enough to really get on top of these things. And why you take no for instance which is what I really like, cuz that’s what I’m like with my clients and I would say something and you’d go, whoa, it just back that one up.

[00:07:21] We just, this is really important. We need to come back to this because if you are letting that slide, if you are turning up like this. Then this is what’s gonna happen. And and actually really showing me particularly that in a small organization there is nowhere to hide. And not just for the people that are working for me, but also for me.

[00:07:43] And therefore I am very visible. When you are working well, I had 400 employees, for example. It was really easy for them to see slices of me, Ricka see all of me. And and it’s, it’s like every relationship. It takes some time to build, but it’s always been really positive. And every time we move on, I’m always just amazed by that next step. It’s whoa, I thought it was really good before and now it’s even better.

[00:08:11] Kris Ward: It’s really interesting to me too, because this is a part where you, I wanna unpack a couple really important things that you said. First of all, thank you for your compliments about I take no prisoners, cuz I do think the kindest thing you could give somebody is the truth.

[00:08:23] And let’s, and I also think too, that there’s little things. . Like I remember one time I was jogging, I don’t do it anymore. I hate jogging, whatever. But I was jogging home and I was doing a run and I could see my home. It was like two kilometers, like I could see down the street, maybe two minutes away, right?

[00:08:40] And I had this little pebble in my shoe and I said, oh Kris, that’s just you looking for excuse to stop cuz you hate jogging, but you know what? It’s a workout. J. And I gave myself this big thing and I got home, took the pebble of. But I had this huge blister the next day just from pushing through, and then I couldn’t exercise for a week.

[00:08:57] Those little pebbles become big things really quickly, and that’s also something I talk about all the time. I think you’ll know. The ending to this story is I say, look, if you were in an ocean liner with 500 people and something happened on that ship, you’re gonna assume that a hundred or 200 people are gonna be useful and you’re gonna be okay with that.

[00:09:16] But if you’re in a rowboat with one or two other people, , you better have a bloody good team. Yeah. So people often confuse when you have a small team that there’s no culture, but you need that culture more than anything. Does that make sense?

[00:09:29] Christine Nicholson: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I, and funny enough, I say that to my clients, you always say, If you were starting again, who are the five people that you’d put in the rowboat or in the lifeboat?

[00:09:39] Because that would be the culture that you would be wanting to grow if you were starting again. And it’s the same thing. It’s the same thing, really, but yeah, it’s that.

[00:09:48] Kris Ward: I think

[00:09:49] Christine Nicholson: That journey has been smoother than I anticipated and a whole lot less pain. I was going to make it really complicated. You made it really simple.

[00:10:00] Kris Ward: I think what’s out there, the corporations and where we were all raised as employees, and it’s still like standard out there, is that you hire someone and then you check on their work, like a parent to a child, a teacher to a student, and then you create yourself another job and then you resent it cuz you’re like I hired you cuz I can’t keep up with my work and now I’m supposed to check your work and what my whole thing is that no, we’re setting it up so that they support and take care of you.

[00:10:25] You do not need another job. And that formula that, we’ve all been held prisoner to. That’s what’s wrong with that. So I think with, when we found you someone to work with you, we had a completely different way of implementing how you’ll work together. And that’s where you started getting so much more robust, free time and as you say, clear thinking and then it allowed you to go out and bring in more revenue. So I think to be fair, that’s all everyone sees out there.

[00:10:51] Christine Nicholson: Yes. Yeah. And the client contact that Ricka has, the feedback I get is always amazing. It’s can you clone her? Where can I get one? Does she have a sister ? It’s, it is that kind of stuff. Yeah, she makes me look good.

[00:11:05] Kris Ward: And you know what’s really interesting about that? I get that too from my other clients where people say could we share her, whatever, cuz they’re so amazed with the supports they have. And then I’ve had a few clients where I had one client and her assistant moved on that we had found for her, wanted to move on cuz she was got pregnant and she’s a high risk pregnancy and there was all these things that she just felt she needed to now be staying at home.

[00:11:25] My client, Karen was like, oh my gosh, where are we gonna do it? This amazing person. I said, it’s the process, not the person. Like she’s great. But we’ll get you somebody else. And she couldn’t believe that this person was just as amazing, if not better. And she goes, I just thought, I want people to understand it’s not like you found this magical spouse or partnership.

[00:11:44] They may be great, but it’s the setup. And the setup can be duplicated again and again.

[00:11:50] Christine Nicholson: And over the period of time, it’s the one thing that has really been rock solid in our working relationship because Ricka is absolutely a process person, but she has this element of creativity and we’ve managed to work a process so that the stuff that she really enjoys, you can still do.

[00:12:12] She also gets the opportunity to really exercise some of that creative muscle. And she’s self-taught with graphic design, but she does great design for me, and it’s just been something that gives her a bit more satisfaction. But when I did her first quarterly review and I said, “What could we do better?” And she was really clear. You could follow the process.

[00:12:38] Kris Ward: Okay. Two things right there. One is we do teach you how to do these powerful quarterly reviews that are very insightful, that are done differently than any sort of valuation done in the workplace. And two, that does lend itself to what we call the super toolkits.

[00:12:51] And that if you use the super toolkits effectively, they will constantly compress your time because we’re always looking for that WIN formula, 60% execution. 40% admin so that you can be moving on to the next thing. Cuz you certainly can vouch for, you have no shortage of ideas, right? So you need the bandwidth, you need to be constantly compressing the admin so you can get to the next thing, right?

[00:13:12] Christine Nicholson: Yeah. Yeah. And was told that today, she, I dunno what you did this year, she said, but you are all over social media all of the time in a really good way. Yeah. And I’m like, yep, that. It’s, we’ve just got a process for it and I get monthly what I need to produce for the next eight weeks, and we’re always on an eight week rolling cycle.

[00:13:34] And if it’s coming up to seven weeks before I need to produce something, I get almost like a flashing light going, you need, this needs to be done because, I’ve got, yeah, I can’t be delayed. Because of your lack of planning.

[00:13:47] Kris Ward: Yeah. She’s not gonna hold, she’s not gonna let you slow. That’s the thing. She won’t let you slow down. Because that’s how we have it set up, is you are not there to babysit her. Yes. So she will make sure that the pieces are put in play, because if not, it’s on her. Yes. I always give the example of if, for example, we have a email broadcast to go on Thursday and you say, oh, Kris, I need a picture, and then I don’t get you the picture.

[00:14:10] You cannot look at me Monday and say you didn’t get the picture that’s on you to make sure you get it from me. So we’re not here to babysit you. You are here to take care of us. Yeah. But, and that’s easy enough done with the super toolkits and all the things we even play. It’s not putting them in a position where they parent you.

[00:14:25] Like Ethel in the fifties when she was the assistant to the secretary, to the doctor. We don’t do that. Yeah. So I. So let’s take the transformation again really quickly. So you showed up, you missed up the first two appointments, you showed up like your hair was on fire.

[00:14:40] Christine Nicholson: Yeah. And then you every I was gonna say, it wasn’t just my hair on fire. Every end was on fire.

[00:14:46] Kris Ward: Every end was on fire. And then you even talked about before we started here too, that you were on meds to manage your adrenaline.

[00:14:54] Christine Nicholson: Yeah. So my adrenaline was just going, like running. So if you imagine that that whole fight flight, and fight response that you get? That, that was going on my body 24 hours a day.

[00:15:06] Yeah. Cause I literally didn’t know how to switch off. And about six months in, I suddenly realized that I hadn’t taken my supplements for a couple of weeks. And it was like what was this one? This is this is what it’s supposed to feel like. It’s like this is what normal feels and of course, six months in, I took my first month. And nobody noticed. Yes. And that was just extraordinary.

[00:15:29] Kris Ward: Whole month people. That’s a month, whole month.

[00:15:31] Christine Nicholson: Yeah. Yeah, a whole month. And I was hiking in the Rockies, so it wasn’t like I could be checking my phone like that just wasn’t an option. Yeah, everything is for real month.

[00:15:43] Kris Ward: Not like you somewhere answering emails from a different location. Yo yeah, I’m on vacation. I check my emails in the morning. I’m pretty good for a couple hours. You took a whole month off and now you’re taking another whole month off where you will be like, I don’t even know where Muck Tuck, nowhere.

[00:15:57] Costa Rica somewhere, chili, whatever. No you’re no connection and you’re set up to do that from the person who couldn’t make an appointment and on adrenaline meds, right?

[00:16:07] Christine Nicholson: Yeah. AB absolutely. And let’s not forget the quadruple effect, which is I double my income in all of that time. Yeah.

[00:16:15] And I have a rhythmic acquisition of clients, and I’m all over the various socials that, that I do use. And I’ve got managed to build two really solid strategic partnerships that will allow me to deliver again, another raft of support and delivery. Without actually not only not increasing my hours.

[00:16:39] Actually halving my hours now. I now track the hours that I work on client delivery and in support. And I’ve gone from working well over a 60 hour week to typically working a 20 hour week, which, yeah, and tracking it, it’s like bunks

[00:16:56] Kris Ward: And we talked about that with looking at your calendar different, you treating it like your time bank account using super toolkits and then having a team.

[00:17:03] And a team is not a number person. It’s it’s not a people, it’s not about a number. It’s about philosophy. So right now you have Ricka that’s one person, that’s your team. But what I’m so passionate about, this isn’t about me, but what I’m so passionate about is when I have people like you and you generously, kindly say, I’ve changed your life, or I have people tear up saying, Kris, I didn’t know in what bad state I was or how I was neglecting my health.

[00:17:27] And the ability to fall back in love with your business and to take care of yourself again and to wake up. I call it like a recovering addict. Like I still to this day, cause I did it many years ago, the first couple years I was in business and all that stuff, and I never get tired of waking up rested oh my gosh.

[00:17:44] It feels good to feel good, doesn’t it? Yeah. Instead of you’re dragging your empty hollow body around. So tired. You’re trying like you’re nauseous and thinking that once you get past this next thing ding. Once you say, once I get past this next thing, that’s a problem. And I thought that, and you thought that, and that’s why I wanted you here is cause I want people to understand like, you really had to convince me cuz who’s the fool when you missed two appointments to like to work with me?

[00:18:10] One. Okay, you show up with me cuz you’re a hot mess. That happens because you need my help. I get it. Two. Now how dumb am I gonna look at third meeting when you don’t show up. . So you had to really sweet talk, do a passionate email and now you’re somebody taking a frigging month off twice a year that’s a leap.

[00:18:27] Christine Nicholson: Yeah. Yeah. And even just thinking about how I live. Yeah, I’m going to do yoga after this. That’s why I’m dressed like this. Yeah. Now I would’ve normally been doing restorative yoga, what I call blanket yoga. I lie on the floor wrapped in a blanket and hope that the underfloor heating doesn’t switch off

[00:18:46] But I’m not doing that. Now I actually have energy to do something a bit more a bit more physically, not necessarily demanding, a bit more physically engaging. And and actually I don’t have to do that switch on, switch off. Yeah. I don’t have to consciously think about trying to switch off.

[00:19:03] Yeah, just switch off. I The only reason I’m doing this, it’s what gone seven here in the UK right now. And that’s the only reason that I am sat at my night, my desk is to do this.

[00:19:14] Kris Ward: It’s do a favor for me. Yeah. Cuz it’s not your anymore.

[00:19:17] Christine Nicholson: Wouldn’t be. I do have a client in Canada on the other side of Canada as well.

[00:19:23] And I’ve got a couple of American clients, so I do time differences, but oh my God, I used to do starting at eight in the morning and finishing at 10 or 11 or even midnight. At night because I just could never get the right time, the time difference things sorted, and I couldn’t get that organized.

[00:19:42] And then on top of that, I then have to do what I would call evening admin. Don’t do any of that anymore. Yeah. I There is literally no admin that I do. Yeah. Because everything that is a process that can be done and again is in the toolkits and it just gets done. And we have a 20 minute conversation, three or four times a week.

[00:20:03] And it’s what’s on the agenda for today? What’s what do we need to progress? What ideas have come up? What, what have I failed at is the most common one. . But even things like I got a couple of comments this week about being a great podcast guest because when I get invited onto a show, I put socials out about, wow, I can’t believe I’ve been invited to this show.

[00:20:25] I put socials out about, wow, I’ve just recorded a brilliant show today. Then I put the socials out about my podcast has gone live. Listen. And then a month later I do another one going you might not have missed caught this a month ago. But, not only was I on it, let’s face it, I’m a great guest, but but also there’s been some other amazing guests.

[00:20:46] Because I only go on shows that have great guests. So there’s been these other great guests and and I was really privileged to be a guest on this. And then six months on from that I go, don’t forget, podcast is forever. It’s not just Christmas. And I can do that now, which

[00:21:02] Kris Ward: Hold on now showing. Because you don’t do, you could do that now because you don’t do it right.

[00:21:08] Christine Nicholson: Literally turn up for the sh I’m like, the talent you wheel me on. I go, and then you wheel me off and it’s, I’m back in the dressing room having the gin and somebody else is clearing up all the mess.

[00:21:18] Kris Ward: And because we, that’s one of the things with our super toolkits is lots of times we’ll have things that we perfected over the years, and we just give you the super toolkits.

[00:21:25] We teach you the concept so you know how to do these things yourself. But that’s when I had showed you, I believe the copy of, Hey, just copy and paste the copy. You’re only gonna speak of one of so many different topics, and then you can pick from seven different pieces of copy like, Hey, I did this amazing show today.

[00:21:39] The time flew, we talked about boom. So we gave you all that. We implemented it, and now. now only do you get to show up and not have to do all the pre and post work and you’re an amazing guest, but then you are aligning yourself and really, appreciated recognizing the host who gave you an opportunity.

[00:21:57] And you’re doing more socialist than most people, but it’s all systematized so easily and effortlessly and you don’t even have to do it. And so it’s win, right?

[00:22:06] Christine Nicholson: Yeah. And it allows me to turn up completely authentically every time. Yeah. Because I’m not being that jekyll hide. Yes.

[00:22:14] Yeah. Here’s how I’d like to be. And then I’ve gotta do all the grunt work that I really don’t like doing. And here’s the best thing, and this was the, again, first quarterly review. And I remember talking to you about it beforehand, getting prepared. And I went to do the review and I said, just tell me what is the tasks that I’ve given you that have made you happiest?

[00:22:34] And no and behold, she told me that the one thing that she really enjoyed doing was the thing that I liked the least, and I’ve been giving her this task and apologizing. I’m really sorry. I’m giving this to you. Somebody’s gotta do it. And I was like, oh, I’m really sorry I’m giving this to you. She absolutely loves it. I’ve stopped apologizing.

[00:22:52] Kris Ward: Yeah, and that brings itself to the way we set up the quarterly reviews, cuz it’s very different than an employee evaluation. And so it is set up so that you can learn and be much more insightful. And I’ve had that experience as well with my team thinking, oh, I, somebody has to do it and I don’t have time.

[00:23:06] And then I find out. the way the questions are set up to, so encourage them and that for you to really get to know them better. That they like this and that, and you’re like, oh my gosh. Okay, great. We have more of that. Like it’s just a collaborative opportunity to move together faster and to be even a tighter team.

[00:23:24] So it’s a whole, everything we do is really, the opposite of what is done traditionally out there. And I think too, Christine, you bring up a really good point that so many of us have done that I used to call it trying to hide hysterical, Kris, that I would show up like, you’re right maybe to a meeting and think.

[00:23:41] Okay, I had to run around and do all this paperwork before I went to the meeting, and I have to switch gears now cause I couldn’t find that piece of paper. I was all stressed about it, but here I am and blah, blah, blah. And now you’re trying to look calm and soothing and smile, but your jaw is clenched.

[00:23:52] And so you’re right. Back in the day, you may have shown up for these podcasts, but you might not have been a hundred percent sure which one it was, and you forgot the form, and did I fill out the form and let me find my bio? And you’re all rattled. That can’t make you a great guest. And now you show up and you get to have fun and enjoy.

[00:24:09] Christine Nicholson: Yeah. Yeah, Yeah. And it just, everything about life is easy. Yeah. And to be honest, like I was on my call with Ricka this morning and we are, we’re getting ready for me not to be around in January. My goodness me, did I try and make things complicated and she’s just looking at me and I realize it’s like I’m making this really difficult, aren’t I?

[00:24:32] Yeah. She was like, yes. Yeah. So sometimes you have to backslide. I’m gonna use the word backslide. Yeah. Have to find yourself going backwards a bit, and then you recognize it in yourself. And with Ricka, she just lets me burn myself out. Because I think she knows that’s the best way, mainly because I do burn myself out in less than three minutes, cuz I’ve got the attention span of a nap. It’s literally like my attention span is less than two minutes.

[00:24:56] Kris Ward: So the burning yourself out is different than what we’re thinking. Like you’re not burning Oh yeah. You’re saying I realize now with the support and the super toolkits, we in play. You now see yourself more clearly, much quicker.

[00:25:09] Yeah. So then it’s not something where you would’ve went in and spent all Sunday trying to fix something. Now you realize by this infrastructure we have in play in your business that when you go off and you realize, oh, that last three minutes sounded I over organize that. I made this too complicated.

[00:25:23] Okay, hey, I’m back. Yeah. Yeah. So when you kinda like a gps, when you’re off route, they’ll tell you really quickly like off route. Get back. Okay. All right. Yeah. You said being lost for two hours

[00:25:33] Christine Nicholson: And that, and actually those, the it is thinking, getting me thinking in this super toolkit way.

[00:25:38] So I was trying to come up with this really complex thing and at the same time, my sensible brain was going how do you fit that in the super tool kit? At which point I’m like, okay, messy old Christine over. Yeah, and I know I should be over here cuz like tidy process over here and it’s just because the mess is so contra to the organization of the Super Toolkit. And I actually, you even this morning, like I had all these tasks that I hadn’t ticked off as done because I hadn’t put the right tag on. I hadn’t set it up properly on my phone. Okay. Okay. And so on the desktop, which I don’t often use on the desktop, all these tasks were ticked off

[00:26:20] and it’s not that I hadn’t done them, I just hadn’t ticked it off. That’s not in the process, so my bad, again, no, I’m not being in the process. So then you have to go through and tick them off. So actually there’s constant reminders that this really quick and easy way to do things. This process is there to save me time.

[00:26:38] Yeah. And every now and again, you you might fall off the wagon a bit and but you soon get back on because when are not in the process mode. Life gets really difficult really quickly

[00:26:52] Kris Ward: And it sobers you up.

[00:26:54] Christine Nicholson: Yeah. And yet, and because you are used to walking the line, which has taken a while to get used to.

[00:27:01] Yeah. It’s okay, this feels really uncompletely all that mess that I used to, and the chaos that I used to be used to. Yeah. I’m not uncomfortable with that anymore. Because it is just, and it is like being in the path in the forest and you’ve got the well on path and then you go off piece a bit and then you realize that actually you are hacking your way through with the machete.

[00:27:18] Just get back on the path, and so you the signpost for behavior to get back on the path, because we’ve been through this before is if it feels difficult, then you’re probably making it too complicated. And it’s the joy here is simplicity always wins.

[00:27:38] Kris Ward: And I think too, a lot of people, what will say to me is, oh my gosh, Kris, I’m so stressed out.

[00:27:43] I don’t know what to, like how much time will this take? Because they’re already working 16 hour days. And I keep saying to ’em like, listen, this is going to give you time back every week. This is not something you show up, you do some work, I cheer you on. And that is, I think, really important because so many people don’t understand like that every week you went relief and think, oh my gosh, I’ve never had this. This is great. I didn’t work this weekend. Oh my gosh, it didn’t work evenings and you just got a constant improvement and relief and that you saw time differently then. And so you’re right, the moment you say, oh, I’m uncomfortable, and I just feel myself rushing around for 30 minutes, normally I rush around for 30 hours.

[00:28:18] I don’t like this. I’m not doing this. Yeah. So it’s a, I think it’s a really important thing that you brought up too is your constant ability moving forward to get more and more time back.

[00:28:28] Christine Nicholson: And you, I remember one of the key things right at the very beginning because you said that this, I am not gonna make you work harder.

[00:28:37] Yeah. You are just going to work smarter. And I remember when I started using some of the tools you recommended and you said, look, I can remember, I can recommend a couple. And I remember you, you recommended two, one of which was 20 times more expensive than the. Okay, and you said it’s up to you, which one you use.

[00:28:55] Go and figure it out. Don’t spend more than 10 minutes on each. And I was literally like, I would’ve gone and done hours of learning each one to figure it out, but nope. 10 minutes on each. And I picked the one that was 20 times more expensive, which a actually has in the long run worked out cheaper.

[00:29:13] It was quicker to learn. It was easier, yeah to use. And I don’t have to think about, oh, do I need to sign on for more? It’s just one price and that’s it. But I would’ve taken. And now my tolerance for learning new things. It’s if I don’t get this, it’s like, if this isn’t like an iPhone, get it out and switch it on and I can intuitively use it.

[00:29:32] Yet now you’re taking up too much of my time. Move on. I need something else.

[00:29:37] Kris Ward: Yeah, that’s a really important lesson. So what you were talking about, cuz almost everything we show you is free or next to free. So you get a lot of use outta your calendar, which is free. However, you do have to have a project management platform.

[00:29:48] You cannot be running systems or anything like that through emails. That is just hot mess that will never work. You have to reread all the emails to see which came. It’s just, it will not work. So there was two platforms and one, I’m like, this one costs more, but it’s simpler to use. But I think you’re right.

[00:30:02] The key I said is when you do research on this, if you can’t make a decision in five or 10 minutes, then this is not the product for you. And I said, the old Kris and the old Christine, you would’ve spent all Sunday researching and giving yourself a headache. You’d be exhausted Monday. I’m like no. If they can’t convince you that they’re the product in five or 10 minutes, then they’re not the product.

[00:30:21] But even more to that, any tool I mostly, other than that one tool, I said, look, everything should be free next to free, and you should be able to learn it in five minutes. So it’s not about more. More tech isn’t the answer. Like more tech is not gonna, you can give me, as I always say, it’s like a carpenter.

[00:30:37] If you hire a carpenter, maybe he’s gonna do it faster with a power tool. However, you give me a power tool, you are not gonna, like my carpentry work, , the tool. The tool is not gonna fix what I lack in skills. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s the whole thing. Oh my gosh. I could talk to you all day just because I’m.

[00:30:54] I’m so thrilled at the, the progress you’ve made because you were in a very stressful situation when we met, and now you’re taking a month off to have what some people would describe as a trip of a lifetime, and you’ve fallen back in love with your business. You’ve doubled your income.

[00:31:09] You’ve cut your hours down to one quarter, so we just, I can’t thank you enough for sharing your insights on your journey, because I truly think that business should be fun. Yeah. And it should support your life, not consume it. So I am determined to create a movement and your message will add to that.

[00:31:27] Because you even said, I’m only here. I think somebody recommended you to me. And you said, I still don’t understand how you can help me, Kris. Do you know what I do for big companies? Like how are you gonna help me? And here you are

[00:31:38] Christine Nicholson: Yeah, no, absolutely, and actually the lady who recommended me, She said, I can’t tell you what Kris is going to do for you.

[00:31:46] I just know and this is somebody I met randomly on LinkedIn. It was like the second conversation that we’d had and she just came right out and went, you need Chris Said, I’m just gonna recommend and recommend her. Said cuz this is exactly what you need. Just don’t ask me about it, cuz I’m not going to be able to explain it.

[00:32:05] But that’s what you need. And it, I, and I don’t even classify it as a leap of faith because it just wasn’t, I listened to your podcast for a few episodes, which I managed to listen to while I was trying to go to sleep.

[00:32:18] Kris Ward: Oh, dear God. .

[00:32:20] Christine Nicholson: Yeah, that didn’t work. Cause often, so I do listen to podcasts and quite often fall asleep to them.

[00:32:26] But yeah, so I thought, oh, I’ll just listen to a few podcasts and see. And at the end of it, I still didn’t have any idea what was gonna change, but my whole life changed and I think it. . It didn’t just change for me. It, the benefit changed from my clients because they get a much better Christine turning up.

[00:32:48] Kris Ward: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:32:49] Christine Nicholson: Than they used to. And I think that’s why I’ve got more clients cuz I can handle more clients. Cuz I’m still turning up absolutely. The Zen Christine, who’s completely focused and present for them because I’m not thinking about anything. . And so the brain space has just been extraordinary and yeah, and Interesting.

[00:33:13] It’s not the holiday of a lifetime. It’s the holiday of this January

[00:33:16] Kris Ward: That’s You’re going look at her own it. Yes. It’s not the holiday of Lifetime. It’s just my next holiday. A hundred percent. Yeah. We thank you so very much, Christine for sharing your message because you’re right. Business should be fun.

[00:33:30] And I’m just so glad you were kind enough to let people know yeah, it’s a whole different game and you just wake up rested and eager for more and taking on the next ambition. So thank you again for trusting us with your journey. We so appreciate you. And if somebody does know someone that is looking for accident succession planner or any more of your brilliance, where would they find you?

[00:33:51] Christine Nicholson: So my website is businessmentoruk.com, but I do operate globally and and have the capacity to do so now. And yeah, so most of my stuff is on my website and it is, if you are thinking of exiting any time in the next three to five years, then you probably need to come and speak to me right now and certainly have no obligation call because I can point you in the right direction, even if you’re not ready yet.

[00:34:15] Kris Ward: Yeah. Awesome. All right, see you everyone else in the next episode, and thank you, Christine.

[00:34:20] Christine Nicholson: Thank you. Bye-bye.