Scale Without Burnout: Christine Nicholson’s 9-Day Work Month & 4× Revenue Blueprint

 Episode Summary

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Christine Nicholson Podcast Interview

[00:00:00] Kris Ward: Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of Win The Hour Win The Day. I am your host, Kris Ward, and today we have a really spectacular treat. I cannot wait to dive into this. We are welcoming to the show, Christine Nicholson, business mentor, and she’s gonna give you the raw and the real of what it was like her before and after of working with us.

[00:00:20] Kris Ward: And if nothing else, you’re gonna get some chuckles out of this. I’m sure you’re gonna be able to relate to definitely some of it. So welcome to the show, Christine.

[00:00:29] Christine Nicholson: Hey, great to see you.

[00:00:32] Kris Ward: Okay, where do you wanna start? Let’s start at the beginning.

[00:00:34] Christine Nicholson: Oh, and I, as I said to you just before we started recording, just coming on, this Zoom call was a completely triggering experience.

[00:00:43] Christine Nicholson: Like I remember the first call we had. Where I was literally begging you to say, look, really stick with it. I know I’ve missed the last two, like the first two.

[00:00:55] Kris Ward: Yeah. So you, and this does happen. Sometimes it’s not okay. But sometimes happens. People are such [00:01:00] a hot mess. They schedule appointment with me and they miss it.

[00:01:02] Kris Ward: Yeah. And that has happened. I don’t love it, but it happened. You missed the second one. And I was like, no, who’s the fool? I’m out. I’m not doing, like how many times am I gonna show up and you not show up? But you had been referred by somebody that I knew. And you had sent me a very sincere email begging me like, please meet with me.

[00:01:19] Kris Ward: I really need you. And so I’m like, all right I’ll, if she doesn’t show up the third time, I’ll just do some work, whatever. That’s fine. So we met the third time. Okay.

[00:01:28] Christine Nicholson: Yeah. Yeah. And it, for me, it was a proper wake up call because my booking in to work with you was something for me. Yeah. Forget the business side of things.

[00:01:38] Christine Nicholson: It was something for me. Yeah. And all of a sudden I’m not turning up for myself in the way that I would never have dared not turn up for a client meeting. Yeah. And it really, I mean it was such a shot across my bows that I think somebody had once said to me people treat you how they see you are treating yourself [00:02:00] right.

[00:02:00] Christine Nicholson: And I thought, no wonder, like I’m quite tough, but no wonder sometimes I find myself in environments where I get walked all over. Particularly ’cause I give absolutely everything to the client. And and really what I needed was I needed to calm down before I actually even stepped forward.

[00:02:19] Christine Nicholson: And that, that was the great thing about starting work with you is for a start off, you knew exactly where I was. Yeah. And I remember you saying, beat your hair being on fire. And like I was quite indignant. It was like, what were you talking about? I’m just busy. And but actually when I really took a step back and realized that I was not treating myself very well, I. I was putting myself last,

[00:02:44] Kris Ward: but may I jump in there for a second though?

[00:02:46] Christine Nicholson: Yes.

[00:02:46] Kris Ward: Because it’s a noble act. You think you’re putting like I I’m doing everything right. Sacrificing for the business. Look at me, I’m grinding it out. I’m sweating it out. Yeah. This is what you do. And not to go on a tangent, but we see gurus tell us this all the [00:03:00] time.

[00:03:00] Kris Ward: Oh, I slept on my floor for the six, like all these horrific stories. But what happens? ’cause we’re sold that story is they, that’s the part that didn’t work. They don’t then cross the bridge and tell you the part that, oh, when the business took off is when I did start to streamline things and I did get help and I did put these things in place.

[00:03:16] Kris Ward: Yeah. So you like me back in my dark years, probably thought, this is what it looks like when you’re working hard. And as you said to me, ’cause I remembered this, ’cause I hear this a lot. I’m like, and let me tell two stories at the same time. The interesting thing is you help businesses prepare to sell and you help them put processes in place to do that.

[00:03:39] Kris Ward: So you said two things to me. One is, Kris, how can you help me? I help other businesses, like five, $10 million businesses, big business, like big money. I help them get ready to sell. How are you gonna help me? And then you said there’s just too much work to do. And that’s the mistake is so many people think you don’t understand.

[00:03:57] Kris Ward: There’s just too much work to be done. [00:04:00] So that’s the principles you were coming in with. Yeah. And if we can skip the messy middle, which we please come back to, because what I want to do is I really, it’s why I was so glad to be invited on the podcast is I really wanna show that for the journey, what’s possible?

[00:04:20] Christine Nicholson: Yeah. Because I was literally filling every piece of time with activity. Yeah. And actually I’m even being generous calling it activity. And I was doing stuff I didn’t like. Now I am working no more than nine days a month. It was a boundary that I set myself. I’m either working or I’m not. There’s no bleed.

[00:04:46] Christine Nicholson: Yeah. Into other activity. The other elements of my life, I made a really long list and I kept on adding to it. Every time I found myself doing something I didn’t like, I [00:05:00] just thought if I can do it, I can make a process out of it and I can get it done.

[00:05:07] Kris Ward: Okay, so let’s back up for a second.

[00:05:09] Kris Ward: ’cause we’re getting to the end. I think we need to focus on the beginning a little bit. So when I met with you, you did talk about, you were, you said, I said your hair was on fire, which you were indignant about, but later you admitted No. You said your whole body was on fire, right? You were working how many hours a week?

[00:05:25] Christine Nicholson: Oh, eight and in excess of 60. Okay. In excess of 60 hours. Yeah.

[00:05:30] Kris Ward: You said later, you told me after the fact that you were having trouble sleeping. Yeah. All kinds of difference. You were taking medication, cortisol, all kinds of stuff was happening. You weren’t sleeping well, right? Yeah, in the time that we worked together within the year. Yeah. You told me what you said what went up four times.

[00:05:50] Christine Nicholson: My income, yeah. Went up four times.

[00:05:53] Kris Ward: Four times. So that’s the thing I keep telling people, it’s not just about working less hours. So your income went up four times? Yeah. The amount that it was [00:06:00] before? Yeah. Your hours went down, way down. Way down. Yeah.

[00:06:05] Christine Nicholson: Oh, yeah. Yeah. 20. Literally it was like the, it was like the fours. Yeah. ’cause it was like four times four times my income on 25% of the hours. That’s a massive swing.

[00:06:15] Kris Ward: Yeah. That’s crazy, right? Yeah. The numbers are upside down. And then as our process, we, one of the things we do in the beginning, it’s just a bonus thing we do, we find, hire and onboard a VA for you.

[00:06:25] Kris Ward: And within the year you went away for a month with no wifi. Yeah. Where did you go again?

[00:06:33] Christine Nicholson: I went to Chile.

[00:06:34] Kris Ward: Oh, Chile. Okay. You went Chile, went to East Island for a month with no wifi. Yep. And the VA that we had for you ran the business.

[00:06:41] Christine Nicholson: Yep. And she’s still with me. Yep. Okay. And I remember before I went on that month, my, you know what my biggest fear was?

[00:06:50] Christine Nicholson: My biggest fear was that me not being there, my VA would leave.

[00:06:55] Kris Ward: Oh yeah.

[00:06:56] Christine Nicholson: Like I clients leaving couldn’t have cared less. [00:07:00] Yeah. It’s not that I didn’t love my clients. Yeah. Because I did. I understand. It’s just that I knew that if she was there, they’d be looked after. Yeah. So now my focus, instead of looking after the clients, now my focus is looking after my VA. Because…

[00:07:10] Kris Ward: and that’s a whole nother discussion.

[00:07:11] Kris Ward: And the reason you’d have, okay. I think two things you’re saying here is, one, she was so valuable to, you wanted to make sure she was happy. But you will find as the work that we’ve done with you and the training you got, it’s not hard to keep them happy. No. No. So the problem why you see so many VAs that are ghosted, like they leave and they do all this stuff is ’cause you are not set up to take care of them and their workflow and all this other stuff.

[00:07:33] Kris Ward: And you are dumping tasks on them and coming at them from all different angles in an email and they’re stressed out and there’s no training and you are not set up for the VA. So even if you find a perfect VA, they’re gonna be churned up, spit out in a couple months and you won’t know what happened. But you didn’t understand and didn’t have faith in that yet that you had been set up properly for your VA, who is now years later still with you.

[00:07:57] Kris Ward: Yeah. And now let’s get back to [00:08:00] this. Now your current life is you work. Nine days a month.

[00:08:04] Christine Nicholson: Yep.

[00:08:04] Kris Ward: Okay.

[00:08:05] Christine Nicholson: Yep.

[00:08:06] Kris Ward: All right.

[00:08:06] Christine Nicholson: And not even long days. And I still go to Chile and I still have, actually, I have two months a year off work.

[00:08:13] Kris Ward: Oh, wow. Perfect.

[00:08:14] Christine Nicholson: So one at the beginning, one in the middle. And it Rica my VA keeps everything going.

[00:08:20] Christine Nicholson: She keeps the wheels on the bus. While I’m doing that, and one of the things I realized with the training was I actually even loathed to call it training, but it’s what we did you mean? It, the work we did, you mean? Yeah. It was okay. The coaching that Yeah. Working here, it was just on another level in terms of resetting absolutely everything.

[00:08:43] Christine Nicholson: It’s a bit like you know how people get a dog and they go to puppy training classes? Yeah. Yeah. And it’s not really puppy training classes at all. It’s dog owner training classes. And it is like the I remember when we were talking about, getting me a VA [00:09:00] and I’m like what am I gonna, what am I’m gonna give her to do?

[00:09:03] Christine Nicholson: And you were actually training me. Yeah. How to get the most, I have a great relationship with with Rika now, but, oh my God, for the first year. And she’s a superstar, but for the first year, yeah. God, I used to trample all over that poor woman. I would give her a task to do and then interfere and meddle and micromanage.

[00:09:24] Christine Nicholson: And it was by the time I got to the point where I could take the whole month off. That’s what made me fearful that she might leave because it was like, she might think that I’ll go away for a month and come back and the bad old Christine would be back, but because it went so well and the great thing was that, we talk about what goes well and what could go better.

[00:09:46] Christine Nicholson: And there’s a whole language that I use now and the great thing is that it’s not just the language that I use with my VA. Oh boy I’ve transferred this to how I engage with my clients.

[00:09:57] Kris Ward: Yeah. Because it’s really leadership skills we’re [00:10:00] teaching you. And leadership skill, I think has a whole bunch of, I don’t know, connotations to it.

[00:10:05] Kris Ward: And one of it, it sounds like you’re beating your chest inspiring people, but the little nuances that I would teach you don’t say this to her or you said this. ’cause I would see, we, once a week you have a scrum or whatever and I’d say, send me the recording of that or different things that we’re doing and, or I even remember one time she was struggling with a personal issue had missed a couple days and you were gonna about to get all up in it.

[00:10:26] Kris Ward: Yeah. But that’s a very parentified model. You’re like, oh, maybe I should tell her I went through this and she’s not your girlfriend. Here’s what we’re gonna do. You know what I mean? And it was because. Then it gives her the opportunity to be a professional and to impress you and to become a team member.

[00:10:42] Kris Ward: ’cause we believe a team is a philosophy, not a number. You can have a team of one. So there was a lot of subtleties. I often compare it to being a chef, the difference between me cooking I don’t know, let’s not say I’m making chicken and a world renowned chef is making chicken. It’s still a chicken, but it’s the subtlety of the spices that [00:11:00] is the game changer.

[00:11:01] Kris Ward: Yeah. And so it’s the little things that we are working with you on. Say it this way or Don’t talk about this, or just tweaking all that. And then it becomes a leadership language. And you’re right, it impacts everything you do. Yeah. Yeah. And that the language thing was a real game changer. And I remember we’d been working together a few months and it was, there hadn’t been a huge amount of change, but my temperature had cooled. And then all of a sudden things really snapped into place because it, it was I would literally, I started too hot to handle. Yeah. And that sounds like a eighties song or something. A t-shirt. Yeah. I’m too hot to handle.

[00:11:43] Christine Nicholson: Okay. Yeah. And now I, I’m like, I’m super, I’m ice cool.

[00:11:48] Kris Ward: But do you, lemme jump in here because I did this too. And I don’t know if you thought, ’cause you’re smart and you thought, I thought I could fake it. So when I was in what I call my dark years as a recovering rusha holic, like [00:12:00] you, I’d show up, ha. And wanting the world to go faster, to keep up with me and everything.

[00:12:05] Kris Ward: If I thought something took two minutes and it took four, then I’m, more minutes behind and I would show up and I would smile and my jaw be clenched and I’d be thinking, can’t that person talk quicker? But I thought because I was capable and smile that nobody could smell off me the stress.

[00:12:21] Kris Ward: And they do. And, but no one’s gonna tell you. But so what you’re saying is you thought you were doing a, but you’re really doing B. But now you show up and you’re like, everything about you feels different. Like you look younger, you look relaxed, you feel relaxed. There’s a aura of relaxed. Whereas before you might say things that look good on paper, but there’s a big disconnect. There’s a energy there and people feel it. Whether it’s a potential client in a sales call, whether it’s the VA, it impacts. ‘Cause we know like something like 92% of what we say is nonverbal. But I know, I thought I could fake it for a long time. [00:13:00] Yeah.

[00:13:00] Christine Nicholson: Yeah. And there are things that you, the underlying things that you can’t fake. Yeah. Like not being able to sleep more than a couple of hours. Yes. I think I was on about 90 minutes because my cortisol levels were so high. So I was taking medication to reduce my adrenal response, which was actually making me drowsy in the morning.

[00:13:23] Christine Nicholson: And then so you’d spend all day feeling like a zombie and then go to bed and be, literally have your, it was almost like you’d had your eye legs peeled off because you couldn’t close your eyes. And then, I used to go to the physio because I always had stiff shoulders and a stiff neck. Yeah.

[00:13:40] Christine Nicholson: And God, you saved me a fortune because nom meds, no physio. Actually you save me a fortune in one ways because I only work nine days a month. Go and spend that money doing like really good, interesting stuff. But equally, I can now go and spend a whole day in my garden and spend an hour.[00:14:00] 

[00:14:00] Christine Nicholson: I’ve got a little pond and I spend an hour staring at my frog, the frog and Utes in my pond. And it’s and I come away from that still feeling all zen because I’m not working. Yeah. And just that bleed on whe whether I’m working or not working that just doesn’t happen any anymore.

[00:14:20] Christine Nicholson: I’m like a Mondrian painting. Now there’s hard lines there where if it’s a workday, it’s a workday. And if it’s not I look at my email.

[00:14:29] Kris Ward: I think that’s really important what you’re talking about, that bleed. And we don’t talk about that enough because the whole idea is bef what you’re saying now is like, when I’m doing something, I enjoy, I’m all in.

[00:14:39] Kris Ward: And before, even when you weren’t theoretically working, you were working, like you could be having a shower, you could be driving a car, you’re looking at somebody who’s talking to you and you’re thinking open files in your head going over stuff. And so I think even more than just the hours you had.

[00:14:53] Kris Ward: And that’s another thing I say all the time. If you think you’re working 50, 60 hours a week, you’re probably working 70, 80. First of all the amount of [00:15:00] time you’re thinking about it. And then all the things, you’re not even counting as work. Oh, my email’s not really work. I’m just doing that before I start work and whatever.

[00:15:08] Kris Ward: So you’re saying No, I’m really clear. It’s nine days a week. Sorry, nine days a month. It was nine days a week. It need to be nine days a week. Now it’s nine days a month. Yes. Yeah. And also your health that ages you, like you have a freaking heart attack,

[00:15:22] Christine Nicholson: yeah. I’m 59 now. I was 59 yesterday.

[00:15:26] Christine Nicholson: Wow. And and if there was ever a blessed moment, the sun came out, like it hasn’t been out for months. The sun came out, I spent all day in my garden. I had foolishly allowed someone to book a conversation in my diary, and I was going to cancel it. And then I thought, actually looked at who it was, and I thought, oh.

[00:15:50] Christine Nicholson: Okay. I know I’m not gonna be working for most of the day, but that thing is in my diary, I quite fancy speaking to that person, so I’m going to, but this makes it a workday. [00:16:00] Okay. Even though that workday is actually only half, half an hour because there’s no bleed. I’m either working or I’m not full stop.

[00:16:07] Christine Nicholson: Yeah. When I go to Chile, ’cause I spend a couple of months, a year in Chile. Now there’s a three hour time difference between the UK and Chile. So when I’m there I have a month off, but the month before and the month after that, that I’m also there, I only work six days a month. Okay. Okay. And, okay, so I extend my day by the three hours.

[00:16:31] Christine Nicholson: Okay. That’s all I do. And and then I only work the six days and I was amazed that once I decided to do it, and then actually did it. You just commit to doing it. All of a sudden nobody, nobody asks me where I am or what I’m doing. They just go. Okay. ‘Cause the system is, yeah. If you want time in my diary, you book it in.

[00:16:56] Christine Nicholson: If it’s all my clients are pre-booked in. Yeah. If you want to book in [00:17:00] any extra you’ll book in when I’m available. Yeah. And if I’m not available then. And just don’t book in. Yeah. Absolutely.

[00:17:07] Kris Ward: Could you imagine back to that conversation where again you said to me, I don’t know how you’re gonna help me, I help businesses that are five, $10 million.

[00:17:15] Kris Ward: And I’m like I don’t know, but I’ve never not been able to help people. Like I I know I can do this. And if wise profit, if you know some sort of fortune teller or Medium said to you on that day, you whose hair on fire, you’re stressed to be on the gills, you’re running in panic mode. You like, you just tension feels in your body.

[00:17:37] Kris Ward: Even when you sleep, you’re gonna go from this all these insane hours you’re working, no break grind. You are gonna go from this to spending half your time in Chile and working nine days a month. That’s, there’s nobody in the, you would’ve never believed that. No.

[00:17:52] Christine Nicholson: So to be honest, I, every day I wake up and I don’t believe it, I either.

[00:17:56] Christine Nicholson: ‘Cause people say, people do say to me. [00:18:00] What the hell do you do? Yeah. It’s amazing. I, I I’ve I’ve always done volunteer work, but I’ve always done volunteer work when I’m absolutely on my knees. And I’ve literally, as I did with you, literally hand break turned at the last second into turning up to those events and been Yeah.

[00:18:21] Christine Nicholson: Half a person whereas now I’m in it. Yeah. When I’m volunteering, I’m completely present. Yeah. So it’s it’s just been it’s just been life changing. The one thing I will say is I expected to actually either completely fail. I, IE this wasn’t gonna work for me, or if it was gonna work, it needed to work.

[00:18:47] Christine Nicholson: Now I needed the evidence now because that was how I was living and what the whole experience has taught me is actually being much more patient and much more [00:19:00] still. Yeah. And how much more I get out of life, how much more my clients get out of me in less time. Yeah. Because I always start off with, there’s a first millimeter that you’ve gotta travel and then you travel a centimeter, then you travel 10 centimeters and then it’s 50 and then it’s a meter.

[00:19:24] Christine Nicholson: So you go through those ’cause it’s an accelerating thing, but you have to start small. Yeah. And you have to embed those habits in right at the very beginning. And if you try and go straight to the 10th step and it’s like just get doing 12 step AA program, yeah. If you just try and barge through them, then it’s pointless.

[00:19:42] Christine Nicholson: And I know that everybody starts in a very different place and they all start with very different problems and different beliefs. But holistically, they’re all turning up with the same symptoms. And you, I actually see people that I recognize [00:20:00] myself five years ago. I can see yes. Pain, I can see them in the high street, literally radiating stress.

[00:20:08] Kris Ward: Yes. And what happens though is the adrenaline we’re so used to just going with all cylinders at full speed. You don’t know how to slow down and you think you’re hiding it, but it’s a whole different thing. And you’ve sent, and other clients to me where you’re like, oh, you need to see Kris.

[00:20:25] Kris Ward: Because we all think we’re faking it. We’re all think, okay, once I get past this next thing and I just gotta go and get this done and put it into the business. And I think a bigger thing too, no matter how niche your work is, and yours is, you’re dealing with large organizations and there’s a lot of money on the table, but I always argue there’s always pre and post work.

[00:20:43] Kris Ward: There’s always stuff that you don’t need to be doing so that you can do the real work that people hire you for. Not the fussing around getting that work ready, the pre and the post. And I know you had a hard time believing me on that one as well and so many of my clients show up like you ’cause we’re [00:21:00] all used to going so fast that then you want the results fast.

[00:21:02] Kris Ward: Can I, okay. I’ve been going like this like crazy for 10 years. Do you think we can get this done in the next two weeks? Because I’m really in a rush to get better, right?

[00:21:11] Christine Nicholson: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I just look at my attitude Yeah. To tasking because, delegation is not just took a task at someone.

[00:21:23] Christine Nicholson: Yeah. And now with Rica, when I onboard a client, we have a process for that now. Yeah. And we had a process for it, but it was a bit hit and miss and it depended on me remembering

[00:21:34] Kris Ward: yes. And business does not run a memory. We talk about that all the time.

[00:21:38] Christine Nicholson: Yeah. And it was amazing that when we actually documented it all down, I got her to document it.

[00:21:43] Christine Nicholson: Yeah. We did lots of sessions about it, and then it was literally this is, I’ve got to do this. Yeah. And then I’ve got to do that. And then, so we had about 15 steps and I was doing about 12 of them. Including invoicing and all of that kind of stuff. Yeah, I am doing [00:22:00] zero. I know of those tasks now.

[00:22:03] Christine Nicholson: Yeah, because actually comes to me and we have these quarterly reviews and I go, what else do you wanna do? And she says and she just picks off things that I’m doing. It’s I can do that. Yeah.

[00:22:15] Kris Ward: And it is shocking. It’s like a snowball effect. You don’t realize it. And even with me and my own team, there’s things now that I thought, I did not think like that was the work with a client like Maura on my team.

[00:22:28] Kris Ward: She’s doing this chat GPT thing. She started engineering it right from the beginning. We’re in a blog that ranked above Forbes on our topic for about six weeks. And she, this is how we did it. And so she presented it to the clients and did a presentation. I was like, I did not think I would be sitting in the audience.

[00:22:43] Kris Ward: She presented on Zoom that’s beyond what I thought. So the thing is, once you get the things in place that then Rica could do this, and then she could do that. And then it just opens your eyes like, oh, I kept thinking I had to do this, but I don’t have to do that. Yeah. And I don’t have, and [00:23:00] it just keeps expanding.

[00:23:01] Kris Ward: There’s a ripple effect where you start to realize a great deal of it is pre and post work. A great deal of it is moving paper around. Yeah. And that then when you hop to do your zone of genius, you’re not only fresher and more focused, you can do more of that with more clients. So you’re making more money, but you’re working less hours.

[00:23:22] Christine Nicholson: Yep. And the quality of, I’m gonna call it work. I’m just gonna go on a side tangent for a second. We’re ahead. There’s the book, the Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferry. Yes. Yeah. Okay. I remember reading that about a decade ago when it first came out and maybe even longer. I’m really showing my age now, but you already know my age ’cause I’ve confessed to it.

[00:23:42] Christine Nicholson: Yeah. So I remember reading that and then I think I was one of the few people who took away from it that the four hours that he classifies as work Yeah. With the four hours of stuff that he didn’t like doing. Because actually Tim Ferriss is one of the hardest working people I know.

[00:23:58] Christine Nicholson: Yeah. When you sit and think about all the things that [00:24:00] he’s doing. Yeah. But he’s only doing the enjoyable things. Yeah. And it was the one thing that actually taking the lesson that I took from that book and then actually getting someone like yourself, a master at getting people to think and act differently because they felt differently about themselves.

[00:24:19] Christine Nicholson: Do I, do, I even say I only work nine days a month, but do you know what call it work. But it’s because I get paid. Yeah. But it doesn’t feel like work when I’m doing it. And anything that does feel like a drag, anything that feels heavy if it’s a client, I just fire them.

[00:24:38] Christine Nicholson: Yeah. Yeah. And Rica is used to me going, oh, we’ve lost another client. ‘Cause I always say to her, we’ve lost another client. Usually I’ve lost patients. Yeah. Yeah. And, but anything else that feels heavy, I’ll have a conversation with Rica. And we work out a way of how she does it. And it is really as simple as that.

[00:24:56] Christine Nicholson: And every quarterly review that we do, [00:25:00] I’m still waiting for her to come back and say, I don’t like doing this. ’cause it is, I always say to her, I will not ask you to do anything that you don’t want to do or don’t like doing, or don’t enjoy doing. So if anything feels heavy, then we’ll just get someone else to do it.

[00:25:18] Christine Nicholson: And so we haven’t actually come across that thing yet, but that was the great thing about the the interview. ’cause she was really good in the interview, wasn’t it? It was like four minutes and we go, if I gave you something if I was to give you something to do that you wouldn’t like doing, what would that task be?

[00:25:32] Christine Nicholson: And she went being on a Zoom call with clients and I’m going, yeah, great. She was really clear. Yeah. So I’ve never asked her to do that, but she emails my clients. Yeah. And here’s the thing. They live me. Love her. Yeah. It’s like I get feedback from a, oh I got a lovely email from from Rica and so they know that and it gives the client confidence actually, because now they know I’ve got support.

[00:25:57] Christine Nicholson: Yeah. But things that she’s doing [00:26:00] now yeah. I would never have dreamed when we were working together that she would be capable. Not, it, not just capable, but actually. She literally is such a good match because she loves all the things I really dislike.

[00:26:17] Kris Ward: Let me jump in there. ’cause you said a couple things that are really important.

[00:26:19] Kris Ward: First of all, that’s the thing too, when you’re talking about work now, you’re saying, okay, here’s the things like even when I am working, I’m getting paid for something. It doesn’t have the energy or the load that it used to. So I used to have this load 60, 80 hours a week, and now I’m doing whatever, nine days a month.

[00:26:36] Kris Ward: And it’s not, it’s so light. It’s technically it’s a workday, but it feels very different than that other thing. I used to call work. And for those that sort of, their ears went up when you said I don’t ask her to do things she doesn’t wanna do. When we talk about what don’t you like to do in the quarterly review, that’s another thing.

[00:26:52] Kris Ward: When we put, we taught you how to do the quarterly reviews, it’s very different. Than what you’re used to in the corporate world [00:27:00] of bestowing your judgment upon a team member. It’s really exploring and expanding their capabilities in a very positive way. And every time we do a quarterly review to this day, after all these years, Evan’s been with me 12 years.

[00:27:13] Kris Ward: When I do a quarterly review, I learn something like, oh my gosh, I thought he wouldn’t like this, but he loves this part of the job. And then you learn more about them and then expands into other areas of things you can give them. And it’s just, it’s really a quarterly review on you, which is why it’s different than what everybody else is doing.

[00:27:30] Kris Ward: And then what you’re saying is she’s so good at what she does that you wouldn’t wanna slow down her productivity or energy having drag edge on something she doesn’t like to do. So we could get, just get another VA or team member to pick up the slack. So it’s a whole different way of thinking.

[00:27:46] Christine Nicholson: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:27:47] Christine Nicholson: And actually, one key example of this is I asked her to do some training on something and I said, I just want you to tell me what you think about this. And but there was like 12 training videos and I said, just watch the first [00:28:00] few and then gimme some feedback as whether you think this is okay.

[00:28:03] Christine Nicholson: And I did this twice and one of the programs, it was actually really got into it and it was, we got loads of really good feedback. But the second bit of training. When she, I actually only watched one or two of the videos and I said, how are you getting on? And she went, oh, it’s so boring. And I went Stop straight away.

[00:28:22] Christine Nicholson: Do not do anymore. Yeah. Because if it’s that boring, it’s not gonna go in. It’s not gonna be. Yeah. And I wouldn’t and this is. So I’m gonna give away one of your magic secrets, which is anything you spend more than 15 minutes and get stuck on, absolutely. Stop doing it.

[00:28:36] Kris Ward: ‘Cause it’s not a secret, it’s a rule I have. Yeah. It’s a rule I have. So what I would say to you is if I asked you tell you to do something like, Hey, do shoot a quick loom video to show Rica how to do something like when you first were onboarding her. And if you say, oh my gosh, I spent 15 minutes, 20 minutes uploading loom. I didn’t know how to use it.

[00:28:52] Kris Ward: I’m like, no, that’s what we’re here for. If you, it’s a rule. If you’re gonna spend more than 15 minutes, we, when you work with us, you [00:29:00] constantly get time back. Yeah. We’re not here to give you homework and then you come back, this should have taken 10 minutes, but took you an hour and a half to figure it out.

[00:29:06] Kris Ward: So anything that I have, you do, especially with tools, it’s going to either be free or next to free and it’s gonna take 10 minutes. Otherwise, if you could throw money and time at the problem, you would already fixed it.

[00:29:18] Christine Nicholson: Yes. Yeah. We went I jumped straight in with Basecamp when I was working with you, and there may be other new tools that have come along that might be, I don’t know, cheaper, better, whatever.

[00:29:27] Christine Nicholson: Yeah. Yeah. But Basecamp works really well for us. And so here’s one of the mistakes I made. Okay. And I did it with Basecamp and a lot of people do it with teams and things in that I treated the chat the instant chat Yeah. As a delegation tool. Oh no. Yeah. And then I put myself in Ikas shoes one day.

[00:29:51] Christine Nicholson: It was just looking back at the things and I had literally been flinging tasks over the fence. Yeah. And expecting it was like [00:30:00] throwing balls over a fence and expecting a dog to catch them. Yeah. And it was like, hold on a minute. This is highly disrespectful. I’m literally distracting her from the core tasks, the important stuff I want her to do.

[00:30:15] Christine Nicholson: And the second thing is, this is not a great behavior for, ’cause. What I would be doing is training her to emulate my behavior. Yeah. So this is not a great behavior to emulate if I do ever expand my team beyond one VA. And and genuinely when we first started working, I was thinking one VA ain’t gonna be enough.

[00:30:33] Kris Ward: Yes. You thought you were gonna need that. This is, we could talk forever. You thought you were gonna need five or six. I’m like, I, you know what, let’s just see that like a big team to me is three. And you had a lot going, but I was like, let’s just see. And people do that a lot in the beginning. Oh, I think I’m gonna need two or three.

[00:30:47] Kris Ward: Okay, let’s just slow down. So you have made these significant and profound changes in your life, like night and day with one. And also something you said too, there is, I call those digital mosquitoes. You’re just throwing out all these digital mosquitoes are [00:31:00] buzzing at her. And in my book, Win The Hour Win The Day I, I call it friendly interruptions.

[00:31:03] Kris Ward: You’re, it’s friendly fire. You’re interrupting them. Yes. So these, all these different tools, whether it’s Slack or whatever, at the end of the day, you’re still interrupting them. And 90% of people do that. And that’s why we come back to the fundamentals of have a daily scrum with them. You’re gonna have your signature, our signature, super toolkits.

[00:31:21] Kris Ward: The super toolkits, take care of everything. If you’ve got all these random things you’re shooting off, then you’re not set up properly. You don’t, you find now you don’t need all those digital mosquitoes. There’s, you don’t have a to-do list. You don’t have all these digital mosquitoes you’ve got, it’s just, it, everything is set up.

[00:31:37] Kris Ward: Because otherwise, it’s people say how do you not have a to-do list? It’s that’s like building a table and having a whole bunch of nuts and bolts on the floor. Where are they supposed to go? Like why do we have these? They should be somewhere, right? Yeah. So that’s the beauty. So I’m not talking crazy, right?

[00:31:51] Kris Ward: You don’t have a to-do list. Nope. Nope. Not no throwing tasks at her randomly and constantly texting and messaging her. You’re not working 60 [00:32:00] hours. You’re not on sleeping medicine. Medication, you’re working nine days a month, you’re traveling, you’re making a lot more money than you did when we first met. And now you’re living, frankly, the life of Riley ab.

[00:32:14] Christine Nicholson: Absolutely. It’s it’s almost like a pre retirement. Yeah. But the quality of my working life and also my non-working life is just so much better. Yeah. The quality of my health. Yes. You look so much better. Yeah. And that one of the things I’ve really learned over the last few years is look, life is incredibly fragile and can be very short, but the days can be very long if you are making yourself miserable.

[00:32:44] Christine Nicholson: Yeah. And, chasing money is all very well, but you can actually have it all. And and you don’t need to kill yourself while you are, while you’re doing it. 

[00:32:54] Kris Ward: No. And in fact, you’ll have more to have if you’re not killing yourself because you are fresher and brighter, more [00:33:00] clearheaded.

[00:33:00] Kris Ward: So you didn’t sacrifice what people are getting from you now is sub substantially more effective and impressive than what they were before. ’cause you were showing up on the fly, doing things half-assed because you’re exhausted, you’re tired, you’re just trying to keep up. As I said to our common friend, Peter, you’re treading water, but you should be swimming.

[00:33:19] Christine Nicholson: Yes. Yeah. And I’m definitely doing that. So be, before we met, I had I’d written a couple of books and I’d always done that between four and seven in the morning on a Saturday morning. So I used to do about an hour’s writing every day, but then I would do a consolidated effort between four and seven on a Saturday morning.

[00:33:38] Christine Nicholson: And I can already hear people going, what? You, what? Yeah. And so I did that on top of my working life and or my normal working hours as they were then. But the last book, I still wrote it on between four and seven in the morning, purely because there is a particular radio DJ who has a show on a Saturday morning Okay.

[00:33:59] Christine Nicholson: [00:34:00] Between four and seven. Okay. And that became my go-to between. Okay. But the quality and speed with which I wrote the last book was so much better. Yeah. Because even though I was doing it in what I call my writing time. I wasn’t doing it in extra hours. Yeah. I was doing it in core hours. I still classified that as work.

[00:34:22] Kris Ward: And you were showing up clearheaded, rested, and capable versus what’s left over from the day or the month before?

[00:34:29] Christine Nicholson: Yes. Yeah.

[00:34:30] Kris Ward: Oh my gosh, Christine, I could talk to you forever. You’re just so generous with sharing your story because I do passionately believe, as I’ve said to you many times, your business should support your life, not consume it.

[00:34:41] Kris Ward: That business should be fun. And I’m just so thankful for your generosity with sharing this story because I do. I. I just want people to understand that you don’t have to sacrifice time with your friends, your family, your life, your health, because you have this ambition and you wanna see something, this creative element inside you, take action, take [00:35:00] place in the marketplace.

[00:35:01] Kris Ward: Yeah. Thank you again for your real brutal, honestly and self-awareness of Yes, you’re a little bit of a hot mess when we first met and now you’re just fantastically at peace with the world. You’re like a zen monk. Yeah. Oh my gosh.

[00:35:14] Christine Nicholson: Okay. I just think that pendulum really has just swung.

[00:35:17] Christine Nicholson: How, where it was, which was quite extreme. It’s definitely swung to a much better place. There’s no saying, which is, pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. Oh, that’s true. And and a lot of people wallow in the suffering because they don’t know any different. And like you pointed out, there’s a lot of people out there.

[00:35:41] Christine Nicholson: They call themselves gurus and then fla themselves on that. This is what it was like. Yeah. And you are literally the only kind of light in all of that, which says Yeah, when they were doing that it didn’t work and they changed and they don’t talk about that because Yeah.

[00:35:58] Christine Nicholson: Talking about suffering is what [00:36:00] people understand ’cause that’s the space they’re in. Yeah. There’s a lot of people go off to Tibet to become Buddhist. And if you are a solopreneur and you are in that state that I was in, you don’t know. You don’t need to go to Tibet to get Yeah.

[00:36:17] Christine Nicholson: Just go and work with Kris and I guarantee you that she will change your life. And I’m just saying this ’cause I’m on the podcast, I, this is how I talk about my situation. Because people literally don’t be, believe me, but for start off, they don’t believe that I’m the age that I am now. But I tell you what, three years ago they definitely thought yes I was.

[00:36:42] Christine Nicholson: Yeah. So it has, it’s done. It’s done. It’s done. Amazing things for me in my life and my business. It’s definitely allowed me to improve my health and it’s literally rolled the clock back. If you..

[00:36:54] Kris Ward: It does, and not only can you have a heart attack, but I’ve had many people that come to me like they fell asleep [00:37:00] at the wheel or just horrible things.

[00:37:02] Kris Ward: One woman was rushing and she said, I know I was exhausted. I was rushing. And she spilled tea and got these horrible burns all over her chest. It was just graphic and disgusting. And I’m minimizing the story ’cause it’s really quite violent. Some of the things have happened to people under the gus of rushing and being exhausted.

[00:37:17] Kris Ward: And so you do, you look like 15 years younger than when I first met you. And just living life and having it to look forward to. Thank you so much. We appreciate you and I’m just so thrilled to maintain this relationship and I’m just so proud of the accomplishments that you made because you deserved it and I’m glad you’re enjoying the life you deserve.

[00:37:35] Christine Nicholson: Thank you. No, it’s no, I should be thanking you.