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Let’s Pull Back The Curtains…and Chat!
Welcome to another Conversations Over Coffee Episode! If you’re new around here, every quarter I pull back the curtain and update you on what’s happening behind the scenes in my life, our house remodel, and both businesses. It’s meant to feel like we’re sipping coffee together in my sunroom with Jasper snuggled up sleeping and Padme running amuck like she normally does.
For this episode, I really wanted, and had planned, to do a reverse interview and have Russell interview me with questions from you. I thought it would be a fun switch-up since this episode is airing on my birthday. Unfortunately, as I’m recording this Russell has COVID (how we managed to avoid it for two years is beyond me) and is quarantined in our guest room, so that’s not happening. Instead, it’s just a normal Conversations Over Coffee episode. Welcome, friend!
Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
- Grab my entire year’s worth of content prompts
- This week’s action step: Something I’m planning for the future of both businesses is making sure that working with me is incredibly accessible … i.e. digital products. If there’s anything you’d like to see me create that would be helpful for you, I would love to hear it! Checklists, timelines, anything. For either business.
- This week’s book recommendation: The Paris Wife by Paula McLain. Historical fiction based on Ernest Hemingway and his first wife. I know a book is incredible when it can take a subject that I really don’t have any interest in (Sorry, Ernest. ) and make me want to devour any and all information about it.
- Find me on Instagram and tell me you completed this week’s action step: @mrsamandawarfield
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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.
Welcome to another Conversations Over Coffee episode. If you’re new around here every quarter, I pull back the curtain and update you on what’s happening behind the scenes in my life, our house remodel, and with both businesses, it’s meant to feel like we’re sipping coffee together. And my sunroom with Jasper snuggled up asleep and Padme running a muck like she normally does.
And just hanging out for this episode, I really wanted and had planned to do a reverse interview and have Russell interview me with questions from you. I thought it would be a fun switch up since this episode is actually airing on my birthday. Unfortunately, as I’m recording this, Russell has, COVID how he managed to avoid that for two years is beyond me and he’s quarantined in our guest room because I have no symptoms and am still testing negative four days in, so that’s not happening instead.
This is just the normal conversations over coffee episode. Welcome friend.
I want to start with the personal update this quarter, because it kind of sets the tone for all of the rest of the updates. So I have been feeling really called to take a step back to slow down and it started with way back in December, November. When I started thinking about my 2022 goals, I was really feeling called to lean more into.
Hobbies this year and to spend less energy working because previously for the last four years, I’ve just been in straight hustle mode. And even when I wasn’t working, I was thinking about work. I was really good at setting these boundaries such as stop working. And by this time, no working on the weekends, like I could do that, but the mental side of things, I had a really hard time letting go of
thinking about work because I felt like it was all I had. That sounds not really how, I mean it, but I didn’t have any hobbies. So like when I was thinking about something, that’s what my mind would automatically think about if that kind of follows. So that’s kind of where this started. And then I did a Bible study on Galatians this year, which was really focused around this idea of, living freely and.
Not looking at different laws and rules in the Bible at these legalistic things, right. It, it really, it was all about freedom from following all of these quote unquote rules. And as of one, I’m very much a rules person. So that really started opening my eyes. And then I read Simple and Free by Jen Hatmaker.
And then I read The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer. And then I read Do Nothing by Selise Hedley. And as I’m reading all of those, I’m starting to think, Hmm. Maybe I should observe a Sabbath. And so now I have been observing a Sabbath each and every week, and that is very much a work in progress, starting small, we’re going up, but I’ve started doing that.
From there I was like, Hm, maybe it’s time to scale back on how much I’m working. Because again, I’ve spent the last four years in hustle mode and I’m ready to move more so into what I’m calling coast mode. I have been working about 30 hours a week.
Typically, as far as work work, of course there’s always house stuff. And that takes up a lot of my time too, but I’ve been working about 30 hours for the last however long. And last summer, I worked half days each day, but it still felt like I was just constantly hustling. I always have 1,000,001 projects that I need to be doing and 1,000,001 things that I need to get done.
And so I not only want to work less hours, I want to be less gotta check the next project off of my. Kind of mode. I want to essentially go through the day and take care of what needs to be taken care of, but not really do extra, not going above and beyond for once. That’s a crazy idea. So as I’m recording this, it is may, and I’ve been doing this for, a little less than a month at this point.
And it has been really nice. And I’m not sure how long I’ll continue, because I’m really just letting God. And my body really guide me on this, but probably at least through June. And I may even still be doing this as this episode goes live. I really don’t know so May 1st week in may I took off because it was the week after, you know, the Summit and my Club Content Batching Launch, which was a huge hustle season.
Like even more so than normal. So I took that week off. And then the week after that, I worked Half a week because we went out of town and then this week I’m working a full week it’s batch week, and then we’re going out of town again. And the next week I’m going to Orlando to speak at pod Fest. And I will be out of office for pretty much the whole week.
And so for most of may, I am coasting, but I’m also, there’s a lot happening in life. So I definitely would want to do this through June and I may even do it through July because as this airs, it’s my birthday. and I just a low-key July just sounds really nice too. So we’ll see. But again, I’m just kind of letting things evolve naturally.
Now, the way I’m doing this, because I am someone who needs structure. I am a very, I like structure. I work best with structure. So I have set up this very flexible. Schedule, essentially, I have a lot of five hours a day to doing things a one hour for cleaning one hour for household management, one hour for this business, one hour for the travel agency business, and one hour for myself.
Now, the reason I put the self one is because I’m not so great at doing things for myself. And that isn’t meant to be an hour where I am really leaning into things that I want to do, whether that’s playing the piano, baking sourdough stuff, painting my nails, whatever that looks like. Right. But I wanted to make sure within the structure that I was prioritizing myself as well.
And. Those five hours can happen at any point throughout the day, they can happen in any order typically when I’m more so in hustle mode, it’s very much like I get up at four. I do my morning routine until six 30, from 6 30 to 7. I get ready from seven to eight. I do household things, whether it’s cleaning or just other tasks that need to be done from eight to 11, I’m working 11 to 12 is my lunch break.
sometimes 12 to one, two. And then after that, it’s, I’m working until Russell gets home at like four 30 and then we’re working out. And then, you know, I have a very, very structured day and certain blocks go at certain times. With this it’s very much, I have these five blocks I want to do throughout the day, but I can do them whenever I want, whenever I feel like in whatever order and very low-key and if I want to work more, I can do, I had that question come up.
Well, what if you have to call Disney and there’s a four hour old time because that’s common. I can work more if I need to. This is just kind of a baseline. So. I don’t think that I’m only working one hour a day in each business I’m, I’m working roughly five to 10 hours a week. But it’s very, again, there are some days when I’m like, I really don’t have anything to do, so I’m not going to do this work box day. It’s very flexible. Now, two obstacles that I have learned so far, and again, I’m not super far into this.
I’m on week three. And one of those I was not working at all technically and then last week was a half week. So, and I’m only it’s Tuesday into week three. So I have not been. I’ve not gotten very far into this, but there are two obstacles that I’ve already gotten to at this point. The first is that I have allowed myself to scroll too much on my off quote unquote hours, which is not really restful and not how I want to spend my time during coast mode.
I do want to spend time relaxing, but I don’t want to spend as much time scrolling as I have been. And that is something that I’m going to have to find an interesting balance on because. I want to be restful without pushing myself to constantly do things, but also, I don’t know. It’s a weird balance that I have not figured out yet.
And the second obstacle that I’ve already discovered is that I’ve set way too many goals for May. When I was doing my goal setting for may. I don’t even think that I had thought about this yet, or if I had, it was in the very early phases. And so I still set two to three goals for each business for this month.
And while they’re not like major goals, they’re still two to three goals that are sitting empty. All my power sheets at this point, which doesn’t feel good. So for June, when I set goals for June, I’m going to aim for just one each. And that’s it. One thing that I want to work on during that month. And I think that that will make me feel, less frazzled.
About the goals, because as much as I recognize what I’m doing right now, it’s hard to look at the things in your power sheet that aren’t getting accomplished. Right? that’s going to be something that I try to do is just one goal for June, for each business and whatever gets done gets done. Even though I sat all of those goals for may.
I haven’t worked on any of them and I’ve worked on other projects, which I’m glad about because that’s kind of the whole point of this coasting mode is to work on what I feel like working on instead of what I’ve got to do this and this and this. But for example, something that I’ve been spending a lot of time on, not a lot of time relative to how much time I’m working a lot of time on in may is fixing.
Not even fixing completely redoing my website for this business. That was not a goal that I had set out for for this month. But as I got into this month, I was like, I really want to do this it’s time. It needs a refresh. It may or may not be launched by the time this airs. I really don’t know because I’m taking it really slowly.
So that’s kind of the personal update what’s going on and it really sets the tone for all the things. Again, I know I talked about business a lot during that update. This yearning this calling to really slow down. Is in all the ways now for a house update. I said that I would have more to share on this by this episode, if you listen to the last episode, I said that, um, but I really don’t.
So we got the financing that we were acquiring in order to make moves, but we’re stuck in. Analysts paralysis mode. we just keep cycling. So first we cycled through whether or not we even want to stay in this house. We are at a place where we have now done enough work on the house last to make it aesthetically pleasing.
It’s fully updated as far as it’s just modernized. That’s a good way to put it. Hello, Pema. It’s fully modernized to the point where, we’ve painted all the walls, all the trim, the ceilings we painted the cabinets in the kitchen and the built-ins and the living room. We replaced all of the carpet. We, completely gutted and remodeled the bathroom, the master bathrooms. Incredible. So at this point, It was never our goal for this to be a flip house, but if we wanted it to be, it could be kind of thing.
when we bought this house, it was very much we’re going to stay here forever. That was kind of our thinking. But the longer we live here, the more, we’re not sure. And so at this point, we’ve modernized it as that, the aesthetically pleasing and anything else that we would do. Would not increase the value as far as resale.
And it would strictly be things that we would do because we want to do, if your realtor and your link, do you have anything that would increase the value middle finger to you? Because no if I’m going to live in a house, it’s going to be what I want it to be. But that being said, if we’re going to make updates like that, we want it to be in a place where we know we want to stay.
Well, I’m not opposed to putting money into a house that won’t resale. I do want to make sure it’s a place where we’ll stay long-term. we’re at a place where decision needs to happen and we either move in, sell, or we stay forever. And we just can’t decide, we cycle through. And decisions. And we talk through all the pros and cons and we just, we just keep cycling back to the same things we’ll say, okay, but this, but then it takes us back to a earlier point and it’s just hard because while the house is much more modernized and updated and that’s all great, it’s a very big house for the two of us.
And it’s a lot of maintenance work. For both of us, both inside and outside. it’s a lot of maintenance and it’s a lot of space that isn’t super usable. Like we have two living rooms and a sun room and that’s just unnecessary. Right. and also there’s some layout things that we don’t love. Like, I don’t love that Russell’s office is right by our bedroom because then when he’s staying up late gaming, it keeps me up.
And there’s just a lot of things. I think that happens. That’s why people buy starter homes are used to buy. And I don’t think anyone can really afford to be like, I’m gonna have a starter home. And then one day my dream home, that’s not necessarily, the way things work anymore. But, I thought that having lived in so many different places before we bought, because I mean, we’ve, I don’t even know how many places we lived.
I thought that that had helped me know what I wanted in the house, but really in. Owned my own home. I had no idea. Now I know what I want. And it’s now what we have, but then here’s the big but. We love this location. We love this location. It’s incredible. It just, I could go on and on and on about it. And that is the problem that is what’s keeping us here is.
We don’t love the way the house was laid out. We don’t want to love how big the houses and we don’t love how large the yard is, but the location. And so we cycle anyway, that was a lot of information that you guys probably didn’t need. But then once we’re like, okay, we’re going to stay here. We start cycling through where to begin because. There were two major projects that are going to be pricey that we would like to complete. the first is the back yard.
And the second is the front yard, I guess is one way you could break it up. So in the backyard, we want to, I’ve talked about this on Instagram a little bit. So if you follow me, you might’ve seen me talking about this, but we want to open up the living one of the living rooms and put a bunch of windows and French doors in it to bring in more light because we have very low ceilings.
And so we want to open that up and add a deck right outside the living room and then like a fire pit and all this stuff. And the fins outside needs to be replaced, which I know is going to be a large cost. And that’s way more fun. We love to entertain. We love to have people over. Russell wants to have like a projection screen so we can have people over for football games and such.
That sounds way more fun. But in the front yard we have seven pine trees. That make me want to murder those pine trees they dropped pine cones and pine needles all year long, all year long. And so again, because the is so big, there’s so much that needs to be done to it. And we spend all of our time raking up pine cones and pine needles, all year long, like there’s, it feels like we never make progress because of these pine trees.
And so those need to come out. They’ve got to come out, they’ve got to, and that one’s not as fun, but in the long run, I think it’ll do more for our mental health because it’s so frustrating. Every time you go outside, we’ll clean up pine cones and we’ll go outside the next day and there’ll be like 20 on the ground already.
It’s so annoying. So. We cycled between, do we do this thing? That’s not fun, but it’s going to be expensive, but also will save us so much time in the yard or do we do this thing that is going to be really fun and it’s going to, make our living room so much better and more enjoyable. And anyway, so basically we keep cycling through all of these things and, what’s funny is I’m a very decisive person.
Like anytime a decision comes up. I look at the options. I weigh the pros and cons, and then I go with whatever my gut says, but my gut is silent on these and his driving me crazy. So maybe next quarter I’ll have a better house update for you. I hope I will hope we will have made decisions at that point. this business update I made to Warfield LLC. since the last episode, The summit happened, the Club Content Batching launch happened, which if you want to hear the behind the scenes of those, go listen to episode 117.
I do a whole launch recap like I said before, I’m in coast mode and I’m really just focused on serving my clients and students and letting my marketing work for me. So batch week, I’m working a full week this week. other than that, I am. Making sure that I am serving my clients, my VIP tier students, my all my Club Content Batching students, I am making sure that I’m still, you know, a priority is speaking engagements.
So I’m still pitching myself for speaking engagements. But other than that, I’m really letting the foundations that I’ve set up for my business in the marketing that I do each week during batch week to work for me. And I’m not spending a bunch of time on other projects or anything else like that. So I’m averaging about an hour or two a day, but if more work needs to get done, I’ll work longer.
Kind of talked about all of that already. And it really just depends on the day. batch week obviously I’m working, All around 20 to 30 hours, like usual during batch week. And that’s kind of it for this business, be on the lookout for a new website launch coming in. I don’t know when, because I’m not setting goals and deadlines for myself for once, but I’m working on it and that’s exciting.
And then for Magical Escape Vacations, the travel agency that update this business has been low key from the start just by necessity because I. was already running one business. So I couldn’t throw as much time onto that one as I did this one at the start. And so right now I’m really very much just trying to feel out when my busy seasons and when my slow seasons will be.
And that’s been very interesting. Obviously it’s going to take a couple of years to really know what that looks like to see patterns, but that that’s been a very interesting. Look at things, I have gotten to do a lot of new things for clients lately outside of the standard booking process.
And that’s been a lot of fun, you know, typically with that people coming to me and they’re like, okay, we are know where we want to say, or we don’t know, but most people will stay on site I’ll book, their packages, I’ll book, their park reservations. I give them dining suggestions, and then I booked their dining reservations and all that fun stuff.
That’s kind of the typical, very cookie cutter standard way of doing it, which is great. That’s all you need really. But I’ve had some clients lately that wanted to try to rent DVC points. I’ve had some clients that also wanted to do universal, so that’s been very fun getting to learn new things, really getting to step outside of my comfort zone and really enjoy doing that lately.
And those are all of my updates, your action step for this week. Something that I am planning for the future of both businesses is making sure that working with me is incredibly accessible. And one way of doing that is going to be digital offers, digital products. If there is anything that you would like to see me create, that would be helpful for you.
I would love to hear it, whether that’s specific checklists that you would like to see timelines that I can create for you, templates that you would like to see anything for either business. I am all ears and would love to be able to make sure that the products that I’m putting out there are things that you want.
So if you have any thoughts, please send me an email. Please DM me on Instagram. I would love to hear it. And this week’s book recommendation is the Paris Wife by Paula McClain. Now it’s historical fiction. It’s based on Ernest Hemingway and his first wife. And I know that a book is incredible when it can take a subject that I really don’t have any interest in, sorry, Earnest no interest really in your life, but it can take something that I’m not interested in and make me want to devour any and all information about it.
I don’t know if you’ve ever had that experience where you finish a book, typically historical fiction for me, or a memoir, but you finished your book and you’re like, I have to know more. I have what’s next? What happened in their life? What if a book can do that for me on a, on a topic that I have no interest in.
I know it’s good. So the Paris wife by Paul MacLean highly recommended and until next time, my friend, I hope that you will go out and Uncomplicate your life and biz.
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