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August 2021 Conversations Over Coffee
Hey sweet friend! I am so glad that you’re here for another conversations over coffee episode. If you’re new around here, you’re listening to the Chasing Simple podcast and I’m your host – Amanda Warfield. Today’s episode is different from the typical episodes I do – instead of practical tips and actionable advice on uncomplicating your life and business, I’m pulling back the curtains on my own life and business and inviting you to come join me with a hot mug of coffee to chat about what’s REALLY going on around here. I give updates on the behind the scenes of the business, what’s going on in my personal life, what my current goals are, and what’s happening in our house renovations. It’s fun and lowkey, but definitely different from the “typical” episodes you’ll see around here, so be sure to hop around to some other episodes as well.
And if you love this episode, I would love to hear about it! Head on over to Instagram and shoot me a DM! But for now, let’s dive on in.
Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
- Take the Simplify Your Biz Quiz!
- This week’s action step: Go check out the first lesson inside of CCB and get a sneak peek at the membership portal.
- This week’s book recommendation: House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas
- Find me on Instagram and tell me you completed this week’s action step: @mrsamandawarfield
Did you love this episode?
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Have a comment about today’s episode, or a topic you’d like to suggest for a future episode? Shoot me an email over at hello@amandawarfield.com!
Rather Read? – Here’s the Transcript!
*Just a heads up – the provided transcript is likely to not be 100% accurate.
Who I had to go heat up my coffee for this one side note. Can anyone ever actually finish a cup of coffee without having to heat it up again? Because I don’t think I ever have. And I hear and see moms talk all the time about how they have to like reheat their coffee all day long. I’m not a mom and I still have to do it.
So what’s wrong with me. But anyways, for those of you that are new around here and haven’t listened to a Conversations Over Coffee, so these episodes are really low key, very chill, very informal, kind of like the TV shows where the fourth walls removed. It’s kind of like that. I’m just giving you guys updates behind the scenes of what’s going on in my life and business. So first things first, a house update. We have paint. We finally have paint on the walls.
There was no more wallpaper in this house. I am so, so very excited and. I know I’ve talked about this a million times on , these Conversations Over Coffee episodes. And I won’t spend a lot of time on it here, but so thankful to finally, finally have this done. I know with the last episode when I recorded it, I said that we should have paint by the time, the last Conversations Over Coffee episode aired back in April, I believe, but we did not have pain at that time, but now we do, and it is magic.
The other house update is just that now that the paint’s done, we’re slowly working our way through decorating. We have so much more space in this house than we ever have in any of the places that we rented, that we don’t have. Like our house sat very empty for about a year before we finally bought , like basic furniture to fill some of these rooms.
We don’t have rugs. We don’t have very much decorative stuff, period, because all of the places we rented were so small. And so we’re going to slowly accumulate decorative stuff. And because it’s probably, it’s going to take us a while to finish decorating this house, which is fine.
We’re going to go one room. So that at least as we go, things start to feel complete versus a bunch of half finished projects all over the place. in the very first room that I’m working on is the dining room, because it’s the most complete room in the house right now. And I wanted a really quick win because it doesn’t have a ton of wall space because of the doors and the windows in the room.
So I don’t need to buy stuff for the walls really. And then we’ve got all the furniture already. So basically it just needs a rug I need to get a mug rack because our coffee bar we’ve too many mugs for our coffee bar and then we have to switch out outlets so that they’re actually white and we just switch out the light switch and the overhead light, and that’s really it.
And blinds and drapes. It is still a list and it will still take us some time, but it is the most complete room in the house. So we’re starting there because that’s going to be the quickest win. yeah, I’m really excited though. that’s the house update a business update. This one. Wow. So much has changed since I recorded the last of these Conversations Over Coffee episodes.
And. Not upfront necessarily in the business, but so much has changed behind the scenes. So if you remember, or have ever heard me talk about the Simplified Balanced Sisterhood, that is no more, I have 100% closed down that membership and the reason I ever even I started the Simplified Balance Sisterhood was because when I did the very first round of club content matters.
All of those students said they wanted ongoing support. They love the community so much. They didn’t want it to end. And so I figured, okay, maybe a membership community is the next step for them. Maybe it’s the next step in the funnel. If they want ongoing support, then they can choose to buy into a membership. So I set up some Simplified Balanced Sisterhood because of that. It just felt incomplete to have a membership just for ongoing content support. It just didn’t feel right.
But. Entirety of the Simplified Balance Sisterhood being in existence. My gut was telling me that something wasn’t right. And I was constantly trying to tweak it and to make it better and to figure out what needed to happen. But my head and my gut were not connecting and I could not figure it out. It was the most frustrating, most frustrating problem.
I think I’ve ever had as a business owner, knowing something was wrong, but not being able to figure out what was wrong. months later, I finished up the final live round of club content batching, and I’m looking through all the feedback that I’ve gathered over the last three rounds.
And I’m seen again and again and again, I loved Club Content Batching. I know how to batch my content. Now I would really love additional ongoing support to make sure I stick with it. And so that was when it finally finally click. Club Content Batching. Isn’t a course. It needs to be a full membership. The course needs to be part of the membership.
And then with the membership, they get that ongoing accountability. So they go through the course, they learn how to do it. And then there’s month after month after month of me being there and the other members being there, holding them accountable. And I love seeing it in the Facebook group. Now, Looking back. I can’t believe I didn’t see this for what it would be at the beginning, but I didn’t. But now in the Facebook group, you know, someone will post it. They’re doing batch week and someone else will say me too. And then they’ll check back in later in the week. And it just makes my heart so happy because yes, I’m there to support everyone. Absolutely. But I love seeing other women support other women. It is just the greatest feeling. Uh, All of that to say, listen to your gut. And sometimes you may not be dreaming big enough for your digital products and services, because I certainly wasn’t when I first started club content, batching, I think I sold it for $67 flat.
Yeah. $67, I think. I thought it was a mini course also. So that’s, that’s a fun fact. It is really truly evolved. It’s wild. And I just wasn’t dreaming big enough and because I wasn’t dreaming big enough, I was doing a disservice to my students because they wanted the ongoing support. So that was the major, major, major business update that’s happened since this, since I recorded the last of these episodes was that I finally figured that out.
I finally. Finally made it right in my gut has been quiet ever since. So. And if you’re curious about Club Content Batching, I have opened up the first lesson inside of Club Content Batching to the world for totally free. There is no like, oh, after seven days you get charged or anything like that, it’s absolutely free.
If you go to Amandawarfield.com/basics, you can sign up and you’ll get a login. And what it’ll do is you’ll log into the actual Club Content Batching membership portal. And you can only watch that first lesson that I’ve opened up for free. And the lesson is about the basics, the basic premises of content marketing.
It’s kind of like a, Hey, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page before we dive into content batching. But it’s the first lesson all of my students take it and you can get inside the actual hub. You won’t be able to access any of the other stuff, but you can kind of see what it looks like in there.
And again, it’s not one of those, like, oh, if you sign up in seven days, you’ll automatically be turned into a membership. It’s not like that at all. I promise. If you want to check that out. It’s Amanda warfield.com/basics. And you can, the other business update that’s happened is that I have moved into summer hours.
My plan was to work mornings and then have the afternoons off every single day, Monday through Thursday. To go to the pool to relaxed, chill, to rejuvenate, to rest, and then I’ve always had Fridays off. So every Friday was off too. And my plan was okay, I’ll start work an hour earlier.
I’ll cut my morning routine a little short because I’ll have plenty of time to fill myself up. Every day, started work hour earlier and finish by 11 was kind of my goal. It has been successful. Ish, there certainly growing pains the first week or two, I probably realized like, okay, I forgot to account for time to get ready.
So I need to move things 30 minutes here and there. I just said some things. And then also I didn’t plan my next big project basically.
I’m not super ready to talk about yet, but my next big project, I hadn’t decided, let me say this. I hadn’t decided my next big project yet before summer hour started. And I ended up about a week into summer hours deciding, okay, here’s going to be the next big thing. And look, that’s not, it’s not really something you can rush.
I hadn’t decided what that was going to be. And then once I did decide, and I looked at the calendar and realized when it needed to happen. And then I backed up to give myself time to do it. I realized that I was going to need to start like 10 days from now. So that kind of changed things where it made it like, Ooh, it’s not going to be as carefree of a summer as I thought.
my hope is that next year when I go into summer hours, I will already have planned for that essentially. So that I know like, okay, I can start before summer hours, whatever. I mean, anytime you do something for the first time, it is a big trial, obviously batch weeks.
It’s not possible to do summer hours. This batch week in particular, as I’m recording this, I’m attempting to do two months worth of content at once. Because my next batch week, I will potentially be staying with a friend she’s getting ready to have her second kid and they like any day now as I’m recording this and for the first month or so, they’re going to have a ton of family help, but she’s probably having a C-section and there may be a week where her husband has to go back to work.
He’s out of time off her family won’t be there anymore, but she’s also not approved to lift anything yet. And obviously she wouldn’t be able to lift the infant in and out of the car or the shoulder or anything, but she also, they have a one-year-old right. Too. And she won’t be able to lift him at all.
Cause he would be way too heavy. So I may be staying with them, helping them out for that week. Why they need that little overlap and it happens to fall on my batch week. Normally I would just move batch week backwards or forwards. But the week before that I will be out of town on vacation.
And the weekend after that, I will potentially , it’s not set in stone yet, but it’s enough of a possibility that I’m not comfortable waiting to see and do batch week. It just, it made more sense to go ahead and do two. So anyways, that was a little tangent, but all that being said, that’s the first time I’ve ever tried to do two months of content in one week.
This is the first time I’ve ever tried to do summer hours. Every time you do something for the first time, you’re going to learn a lot of lessons. And I am definitely learning a lot of lessons this summer with the summer hours to implement later. So that next summer it goes even better and even smoother because I definitely plan to do this every single summer, because summer is my favorite season.
If we live in South Carolina, I love to be outside and frankly it’s pretty impossible to be outside in the summer in South Carolina. If you’re not by a body of water, it’s just miserable. So you will find me most afternoons by the pool with a book. And like I said, things have gone. Okay. Ish. It is successful. Ish. I wish I had been able to get to the pool more. honestly. Okay. So it’s June 23rd. I’ve only been able to go a handful of times, but there have been, there have been a few days where I have actually finished early and done my summer hours, but it was just storming. So I couldn’t go, which is the other problem with the south last summer.
So yeah, successful ish. That’s, what’s happening behind the scenes in the business and I’m just continually trying to improve it this summer. And next summer we’ll certainly be even better.
As for a personal updates. We have been doing lots and lots and lots of traveling lately, which feels. Amazing. It is just the greatest feeling. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but in case you’re new around here, or if I haven’t fully said this, it’s hard to remember what you’ve said and what you haven’t, especially on these more low key chill episodes.
When we got married. Well, when we first started dating. Russell had already joined up for the Navy. And we had a few months where he was in those hold period. Wait period. Before he got sent into bootcamp, when we first started dating and then he got sent to boot camp and then for the majority of our relationship and all of our marriage, he was in the Navy, which meant we didn’t get to travel.
We got to travel in the sense of like, okay, well they stationed him in Washington state. And so we moved out there. But time off when you’re in the military is basically not a thing. They tell you when you can take time off and usually you pretty much only get time off around the holidays. So every Christmas we would have to fly back to South Carolina.
We didn’t have to, but we chose to, because we wanted to spend the holidays with family. We chose to fly back to South Carolina and we would spend all of his leave in South Carolina. And we would try to squeeze in small trips, like one Christmas. we flew down to California and did two or three days at Disney land before flying to South Carolina.
I can’t remember off the top of my head. I’d have to stop and think. I didn’t, I don’t remember, but. We didn’t get to do as much traveling as we wanted to and hoped for our marriage. We, something we really love to do when he got out of the Navy, We had a couple months where we didn’t, he didn’t have a job lined up yet because he couldn’t travel for interviews.
So when he got out, we moved in with my parents for a couple months. He got a job almost immediately, as soon as he got out. Thank goodness. And then we were able to immediately start house buying process, but that takes time. So we were doing that. We bought the house, we got into the house Thanksgiving week, 2019.
And we all know what happened very quickly after that. So all that being said, we’ve done some small trips here and there over the last year and a half of him being out of the Navy two and a half years. I don’t know. I’m not going to math in my head right now in POS, but since he’s been out, we’ve done some trips, but we haven’t kind of do a ton of trips until very recently.
And it just, it feels so. That was a long tangent for that, but a lot of, not a tangent, a lot of background information, but we went to Jamaica. We have done multiple weekend trips to Charleston. We actually lived in Charleston for a couple of years while he was in the Navy. And I. Loved Charleston so much.
I don’t think I would ever actually truly want to live there again. But it’s one of those places that you kind of in the back of your mind, you’re like, man, I love it so much. I probably could. But then you get there and use it in the traffic and you’re like, no, no, no. I’ll just come visit. So we’ve done multiple weekend trips to Charleston.
We love it there. We’re going to do a week at the beach at some point this year, we’re going to do a week in Washington. let’s see, what else is coming? We’re going to spend some time we’re going to go up north this fall, we’ve got a wedding to go to New York. We’re going to make a trip out of it and do a road trip up in the Northeast, in the fall with the leaves.
And we’re really excited about that. I’m going to Disney twice this year and we’ll probably have more weekend trips to Charleston. So, that that’s kind of everything that’s happening in my personal life is just traveling. I’m also, like I said, trying to spend as much time at the pool as possible the summer and.
I’m doing my annual rereads of gone with the wind and the Harry Potter series. But other than that, that’s my whole personal life has basically been revolving around traveling because you got to prepare for it. You got to rest. When you come back from it, you gotta make sure you’ve got someone to watch the house and sit and the cats and all that.
that’s, that’s basically everything. That’s my whole personal updated. And then goals because of all of the traveling and because of the slower business hours, I am keeping things so simple this summer, like super, super simple. They’re mostly surrounded by the traveling, a yard project each month, the house project taking care of myself.
You know, I may have one or two business goals thrown in each month, but for the most part, we are keeping things so simple and just low key. It is low key summer. I’m also working on a really big project behind the scenes for the business. That, that is pretty much all my business goals are related towards right now. And I’m not, I’m not ready to really talk much about it yet because I don’t have much to share with you yet, but The week of October 11th, keep your calendar open. Trust me. That’s all I’m going to say. So this week’s action step. I want you to go and check out that first lesson inside of club content, batching, and get a sneak peek at the membership portal. Again, you just go to Amandawarfield.com/basics, and you can check it out.
You can watch that you can get a feel for what it feels like in there. And you can check out that first lesson and then this week’s book recommendation is House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J mass mass. I still haven’t looked up how to say her last name, but I’ve talked about her other series, The Court of Thorns and Roses series, which is phenomenal, which is one that I will very potentially be adding to that annual summary reads lists, which again, like Gone With the Wind and the Harry Potter series. Those are the two that I reread every single year.
Her Court of Thorns and Roses series, I think is going to be out of that list because it’s so good. This though is not part of that series. It’s a different series and I’m going to be honest. It took me like a hundred pages to get into it. When I first you’re reading it, although I did come right off of finishing the latest.
Of our other series, which could have been part of it, but I struggled to get into it. I messaged one of my friends who had given it like five stars on good reads. And I was like, okay, I’m struggling. How long did it take you to get into this book? And she said, it took her like 85 pages. So if you do decide to read it, I think you should, because it is, is really, really good.
She is talented. I think you should read it, but just kind of go into it, knowing lingual, it might take you a little bit to get into it, but then it is totally worth it in the end.
All right. That was a much longer Conversations Over Coffee episode than normal. So I hope you enjoyed that. since I’ve moved to quarterly, now there’s what to update y’all on, I hope that you enjoyed and until next time I hope that you go out and Uncomplicate your life in biz.
masaya itong gawin
this is the best way.
Thankful for this project
great blog here
lakas