You are listening to My Freedom Grove podcast with Gretchen Hernandez, episode 60

Welcome to My Freedom Grove podcast. The all inclusive podcast that teaches mindset and business tools. We'll help you rise as your authentic self. Be unshakable with your emotional freedom and unstoppable in achieving any goal and living your purpose. I'm your host, Gretchen Hernandez. If you want to put your mental health first in life, relationships and business, you've come to the right place.

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 Hi, my strong friends. I have something really exciting that I want to share. And what I find exciting and what other people find exciting might be different, but just go with me on this. So as you know, I use the clarity steps in everything that I do. That's my seven step process for being unstoppable at anything that I want in life and achieving any kind of goals that I want while putting my mental health first.

 

So I was going back looking in my computer last night and I came across my clarity steps workbook that I had for July of 2018. So this is almost three years ago. So you know how people will say, what would your future self say to you now to help inspire you? So, because I was looking at something from almost three years ago, I am a future version of myself now. So I thought, well, this'll be interesting to read this, to see what was I thinking almost three years ago versus where I'm at now. And then what would I say to myself as a result?

 

So it was a really fun thing. So I'm looking at my clarity steps workbook. And at the time my vision was a life vision and it included life and business stuff. And I was still working in the corporation back then.

 

I had already had my first private client, you know, just on the side. I was just dipping my toes in. I had been blogging for, I think I had on there that I had 13 blogs already done. So this was like way early days. So three of the things that I had on there that I just totally loved was that I would fully replace my corporate income by July of 2019, that I would live someplace that I enjoy and that I would be running a business that I love working with people that I love. And so all three of those came true. And the thing was, is that way back then, I didn't know how I was going to do this.

 

I had set some targets for myself, especially around the fully replacing my corporate income. Now I didn't know how I was going to do it. I had it all planned out like, you know, different products and things I was going to do. Reality was. I did replace my corporate income, but it wasn't through revenue from my current company My Freedom Grove. It was other creative ways, but I still did it. So it's kind of interesting.

 

All of our journeys are a learning experience. So we set some targets for ourselves. So we think we know how we're going to achieve it. And we may or may not. Right? If we're using clarity steps and we're looking at our obstacles and we are resolving them, but we're keeping an eye on what was our original targets, those metrics that we wanted to hit, they're going to come true, but it might come true in a different way because we're learning and experimenting. So super excited to go back and look at that.

 

And of course I live someplace I enjoy. Everybody knows that I sold my house, moved out and got a house overlooking the ocean. And I am definitely running a business that I love, working with people I love. I have three different paid programs. Now I have the unshakable programs, one for men, one for women. And I have members in both and I have one-on-one services with members in that too. And then of course I have my free program, the men's feelings matter support group. And I have members in that too. All of this is just like super exciting because I look back almost three years ago. None of this existed, and now it does.

 

And here I am also recording podcast Number 60. When I first started off way back then, I thought I was going to be doing things by blogging. I hadn't even considered a podcast way back then, and now I have 60. So things are going great. I'm super excited. So just wanted to share that.

 

And, Oh my gosh. So, you know, I was saying, what would the future you say to you now? Right. So I decided I do a little exercise of asking, okay, now that I am future me, what would I say to myself? And so I looked back at everything that I had written out in my clarity steps workbook, and I had a lot of detail in there. And what's great. Was that about 75% of it is already true now? Like I got it all right. And I have figured it all out. And so I felt like this overwhelming amount of love for me three years ago.

 

Oh my gosh, yes, you had it right the whole time.

 

Even though I thought I was going to need a whole bunch of teachers and stuff, everything that I wrote out way back then before I had any of the teachers that I had between then and now, I already had it all, like all of those things are exactly the right things that I needed to do.

 

So trust in yourself.

 

So that was one of my key takeaways is, you know, sometimes as an entrepreneur, we have our insecurities come up and we start to not trust ourselves.

 

As long as we put our structure out there and we keep true to it, We're going to figure it all out. Trust ourselves.

 

We are smart enough to learn, experiment and figure it all out. It will all happen. So anyway, thought I would share that little bit of inspiration. Anyway, I was just so excited about that.

 

So this week's episode, we are going to talk about process obstacles.

 

Why Process Obstacles Matter

 

Oh my gosh, you guys, the reason why the clarity steps talks about obstacles is because if we just push through and just ignore our obstacles and create work arounds, or, you know, just try to push through our mental health really suffers. Our businesses can also suffer so much extra waste and processing time can go into our businesses and it can take forever to get stuff done. Or to get a widget through our processes, or to be able to serve our clients in the best way possible.

 

In our relationships, both our personal and our professional. It can cause a lot of flare ups. If you don't actually stop and listen to each other about what are the obstacles and try to resolve it, eventually you end up not enjoying being with that person and you'll want to not be with them. You'll want to leave, right?

 

So if you want to stay in business, if you want to stay in your relationships, being able to identify and work through your obstacles are going to be very, very important.

 

So clarity steps. That's why it's a little bit different than any other kind of goal achievement process out there is because it includes the empathic listening of listening to what are the obstacles that are coming up, identifying it as either mindset, obstacle, or process obstacle, and then doing experiments to resolve it because you can easily get to your goal, whether it's a life relationship or business goal, you can easily get to that goal if you don't have any obstacles.

 

So if you resolve it all, you show that compassion for yourself and for others resolve those obstacles. Things are going to be so much easier for you.

 

So last week's episode, we talked about mindset obstacles. Now we're going to talk about process obstacles because obstacles are always either mindset or process. A process is just a step-by-step at the events in order to get something done. So it might be making a widget. It might be having a conversation. It could be anything. We are surrounded by processes in our everyday life.

 

3 Main Causes of Process Obstacles

 

And in this episode, we'll go over some that are personal, that everybody goes through and a few things that might be business. But when it comes to process obstacles, there's typically three main causes for these process obstacles.

 

1. Awareness of the Process

 

The very first one is awareness that there even is a process or multiple processes going on at the same time.

 

So when I was working in biotech, my main job, or one of my most important jobs was running Kaizen events. So Kaizen is just a Japanese word for making change for the good. So we're always doing incremental changes to try to get things better. So in a business you have a lot of processes that you have to follow, whether it's biotech or even being a solopreneur, you have a lot of different processes. So during these Kaizen events, I'd go in and it's like, okay, so what process are we talking about? And sometimes people would just like, get the deer in the headlights look. I don't even know. It's like, yeah, that's one of the big problems.

 

We don't know what process is having the problem. We just can feel an emotional flare up, but we don't know what process is that related to. So during Kaizen events, we'd have to look at what are all of the different processes that are in play like really high level.

 

And then which ones specifically, and then we'd start to look at the details of that first cause of process obstacles. Not even having awareness of what the processes are and how many you have.

 

2. Not Knowing the Steps & Details

 

The second one is knowing the details, the steps within that specific process, right? So let's say you have 10 processes for each one process. What are the individual steps for that process? And then knowing the details of those steps? Okay. So that's our second cause is not knowing the steps or the details related to the steps of that process.

 

3. Undefined & Communicated Requirements for the steps

 

And then the final third, cause of process obstacles: our requirements. The requirements between the steps themselves. This one causes all sorts of hiccups in relationships, whether it's a personal relationship or professional relationship. If you don't have all of those requirements known, communicated and met, you're going to have some issues.

 

Processes exist in Life, Relationships and Business

 

So we are going to go through some examples for each of these. So in our first one awareness of the processes. So processes are happening around us all of the time. In our personal life, relationships, business, anywhere. There's always processes. It's always happening. We just are not always aware of it.

 

Some of these processes can have multiple touch points with the different parts of our life, relationships and business, right? So one process could touch all three of those. Typically the way that we identify that there is something wrong is that we feel our emotional flare gun go off, right? We are having anxiety all of a sudden, or we're getting upset about something. Or we got sad about something. That's our emotional flare gun. It's saying, Hey, something's wrong over here. That helps us to go and find out what process is going on. That also works for mindset too.

 

Right? Emotional flare gun goes off. You know, there's some kind of obstacle. It's either mindset or process for this one. We're going to look specifically at just the processes.

 

Life Process

 

So example, let's say you're getting ready for the day, right? Everybody wakes up at a certain time during the day. And then there's a series of steps that they take until they are ready to officially start their day. Right? Starting their day could be the start of their work day. It could be the start of their personal day, right? It could be a weekend or maybe you don't work. Maybe your stay at home mom or stay at home Dad. It's whatever you're going to do to officially start your day.

 

Now, have you ever considered that you have more than one process to do that?

 

Okay. So if you think about, if you do have a work day, you have a specific time, usually that you like to start your work day. So like you're showing up like, okay, I am now ready to work, but from when you wake up until when you get there, you have a series of processes that you take.

 

Now let's assume that we're not going to have a commute time in there. Let's let's say you're lucky enough to work from home, which the pandemic caused a lot of us to work from home. So it makes that commute time, really short, kind of a cool thing.

 

So when you're getting up and you're getting ready, you have a sequence of steps that you take, right?

 

Step 1: Shower.

 

Step 2: Put on clothes.

 

Step 3: Hygiene (shave, brush hair, brush teeth, put on deodorant).

 

Step 4: Breakfast

 

It could be a shower day. It might not be a shower day, but overall you basically have to have some clothes on, do some hygiene stuff, and then you're ready to start. Right. There might be food and stuff involved in there too. But have you noticed that you have a specific process that you usually follow the same kind of steps because as humans, we're kind of creatures of habit.

 

Now let's say it's one of your non-working days. Do you do the same sequence of events, right?

 

Step 1: Go to couch, turn on Netflix.

 

Step 2: Breakfast.

 

Step 3: Take a Shower.

 

Like maybe you might not even do a shower that day. Maybe you don't care about ironing, your clothes or whatever. You're just like, Hey, I'm just going to spend my day in. My PJ's watching Netflix. Right? That's a different process now.

 

And then sometimes you might have variability in your process. Like, let's say you had to go work on location.

 

Step 1: Turn on the TV to check local weather.

 

Step 2: Have coffee.

 

Step 3: Iron Clothes.

 

Step 4: Shower.

 

So you're staying somewhere else. Maybe it's a friend's house or hotel or, you know, whatever it is, your process may be different now because you're in a different location. There's some variability in there.

 

So usually you're not going to pay any attention to any of those processes, right? Like we're going unconscious on this. We just get up. We just do it. But you might end up having your emotional flare gun, go off to say, Hey, there's a problem here.

 

So it could be that you find yourself always running late for when you need to be somewhere. You're feeling rushed. You're having a high amount of anxiety. Maybe you're triggering other people that are waiting for you or that they're trying to do their process of getting ready to. And now there's interruptions of you guys trying to coordinate your schedules. Let's say you only have one bathroom in your house, or maybe you have two, but you have more people than you have bathrooms.

 

So you might have those interruptions or maybe you find yourself skipping some of your regular processes because of whatever reason. And then your day ends up feeling kind of off. Cause maybe you're feeling kind of grimy or insecure. Maybe your energy has dropped because of it overall. Any of that stuff can throw off your whole day.

 

When you realize that your whole day has been thrown off by something, try to pinpoint what was the process that was happening.

 

What was at the very beginning of when your day got thrown off? What was it? And so if it was process like getting up, getting dressed, things like that, or if it was something else, then you can start to ask yourself. And this is helping you to understand your process obstacle.

 

What was the process that I was using at the time?

 

Did I always use the same process of the processes that I do use?

 

Which ones do I enjoy the most?

 

If you have some variation, is there one that you really enjoy versus one that is hard or cumbersome?

 

Or you just really don't like it, it's not pleasant or is there something out of, maybe you have three different processes that you use, maybe there's parts of each of them that you like, that you might be able to create a new process from.

 

And then do you actually want to have just one process? Like that might be pretty cool. You just become a creature of habit. You have one, you really love that process. You do it all the time. You get really good at it.

 

So you get really, or do you like having that variety, that flexibility. And then on any particular day, how do you know which one to use?

 

This is all talking about that very first cause of process obstacles. Is just an awareness that there are processes going on. How many are there and what are they? If you were to list them all out.

 

Relationships Contain Processes

 

You can do this with a relationship too. So in any kind of relationships we always have processes going on. So you might end up having that emotional flare gun go off. What was the process that was in play at the time that resulted in that emotional flare gun going off?

 

Was it a conversation? Was it, you know, the traffic jam at the bathroom in the morning, maybe it was making dinner.

 

I have an example with my husband, years back, we had emotional flare guns going off everywhere for me, for my husband, for our kids. And it all had to do with the making of dinner. So my husband is a great chef, really good with the seasonings. Oh, you should try some of his food sometimes. Anyway, he would go to start making dinner and there'd be a sink full of dishes and the kitchen would be a mess. So he had his process interrupted.

 

He wanted to be able to show up, have a clean slate to start with. And then he'd start making dinner. Now the task of having the dishes done belonged to the kids. That was their one chore that they had to do. So it was continuously where he'd come home, that chore wasn't done. So he either had to do their chore for them. Or he eventually got fed up with that. And he was like, no, I'm not making any dinner.

 

That would send off my emotional flaregun. Right? Like the last minute schedule crash. I'm going to have to make us dinner. Cause we have to feed the kids and you know, all of that. So what had happened though, is it was a process, right?

 

There was a process that all of us had a piece in and it wasn't working.

 

One of those pieces wasn't happening when it was supposed to.

 

It got in the way of the next piece happening.

 

So when we realized and looked at things as a process, and who does what step, it makes it a lot different than just looking at us as human beings. And like blaming and finger pointing and having all of the other mind drama come up around it.

 

It's just a process.

 

It's just steps.

 

It's a sequence of steps. It's the assignment of those steps.

 

Business Becomes a Mess without Documented Processes

 

In business. Oh my gosh. It can get really overwhelming if you don't know what all of your processes are. You can go out, you can just start doing stuff and hoping that everything works out for the best. But you can definitely get confused and overwhelmed.

 

And after a while, it just is a big ball of stuff and you just want to quit. Right? Cause you just are trying to figure out how would I be able to get all of this done. Right. There's just so much of it. And it gets so overwhelming.

 

You start having insecurities and then you just want to quit, but you don't have to. It's a lot easier than that. It takes a little bit of time, but you can absolutely be able to do anything in your business. It just takes a second. Well, okay. Longer than a second, I'm not going to lie to you. It does take a little bit of time, but it's worth it. Because once you do all of this, then you start to feel a little bit more relaxed. You can take one thing at a time and you can make it all work.

 

Okay. So it starts off with the acknowledging of the processes. We're going to separate them out. What are all of those different processes that you're following? And some of them might need your attention and some might not. Right? You don't have to boil the whole ocean. You can just focus on one process at a time.

 

So if you're separating it out, it helps you to focus. It helps you to define exactly what it is that you're doing. It helps you to learn how to do that process and then you get really good at it.

 

So I had an example recently that I was kind of being an ostrich, putting my head in the sand about doing the bookkeeping. Okay. So I started off, when I looked back at that 2018 clarity steps book, I had a tab for my bookkeeping and I actually had kept a pretty good record.

 

I was pretty impressed with myself, but I got out of that habit because I was thinking, well, why bother doing the bookkeeping? Now, if I'm not really making the income yet, I will wait until I have the income. So here we are, 2021, I've had income. I have to get ready to do taxes. And now I'm like, Oh my gosh, I have to do all of the bookkeeping now. So my emotional flare gun was definitely going off a little bit, but it's just a process.

 

So I start sitting down, start flushing out my process and I'm starting to feel a lot better. Now the great thing with processes is that because there are all of these different steps, you can break them up and do them at different times. I made that decision. One time decision. I'll let you know of waiting until now to start doing all of the bookkeeping.

 

So I'm going to have to go back and look at a whole bunch of stuff. So the effort involved now is going to be a lot of time investment and probably some complexity. But going forward, I don't want to do this to myself again. This was not kind. So I can figure out my process as I'm going through. And I'm going to figure out how do I incorporate this with my routine day to day operations?

 

Because I know that I could probably spend less than 30 minutes a week doing any of the bookkeeping and come tax time. I'll know exactly all of the different dates that I need to hit. All of the things that I need to do. And it's not going to be a huge amount of time when it gets there. Cause I'll have kept up with it a little bit each week, all the way through.

 

So yes, it is possible to eliminate your overwhelm in your businesses. By knowing all of your different processes, taking the time to take a look at them, streamline them and fit them into your day to day operations.

 

Distinct Steps

 

So next common cause of process obstacles is not understanding the details of the steps. So, you know, first we didn't even know that we had processes or we weren't paying attention. We might've had our head in the sand, like an ostrich, just hoping it would all work out.

 

But now that we became aware of the different processes, now it's time to actually look at what are the steps? Are they in the right sequence? Do we know the right details? Okay. Because it's one thing to have a process and to be aware of it. But then if your process is vague, if it's unclear or confusing, it's going to lead to a lot of errors.

 

It's also going to lead to a lot of, over-processing a lot of waste in your process and it's going to lead to scheduling problems.

 

I've heard this quite a bit, especially from my solopreneur friends. That they don't know how to get from all of the processes they're doing to what is their regular schedule of activities. Like they would like to wake up and know, okay, today I'm doing these three things and tomorrow it's these four things and that as long as they have it dialed in of what all of their tasks are, that all of a sudden all of their processes are working just fine to make that jump between your process and your schedule.

 

You have to know the steps of your process and the details of those. So you'll do this one process at a time. You'll spend some time figuring out what are the steps, what is the sequence of those steps, right?

 

Because when you're new in business, you're going to do a lot of experiments in the very beginning. You don't know which process. You're not going to document out a whole process and then go do it, right. It takes a lot of time to do that. Like you might do a rough sketch of what you think the steps are. Go out, do it because you're trying to see is this even a process that you like? Does it get you the end result that you're looking for?

 

But once you start to find those processes that you do like, now you're going to go back in, write out all of the detail.

 

What are the steps?

 

What's the sequence of the steps.

 

How much time are you spending on those?

 

So I know when I experiment with a new process, I like to record my time. Just observing myself no judgment, because if I've never done it before. How do I know how much time it's actually going to take? Right? There are some people that will say, make sure you're estimating your time. Right? Well, I don't know how much time it's actually going to take.

 

So my first time that I do it, I'm just writing it down. I'm just collecting some data, just so that I have an idea.

 

So when you have time for each step, it's how much time hands-on are you spending like your actual interaction with it, but also sometimes there's waiting times for a step to be complete, right? Especially if you have software or something that has to process.

 

For example, I do video editing. I record my group coaching calls. Sometimes I have to edit, like if there was a time where I was waiting for everybody to get on the call, I might have to trim that part and then make that a new file. Save it as a new file and then upload it. The amount of time for me to actually do the editing and stuff might only be a couple of minutes. But the time for my computer to process, it takes a lot longer. So for a step to get completed, something that might be, you know, five minutes, hands on time might be three hours for the step itself to get complete.

 

So when we're looking at the details of the steps, we're looking at all of that kind of information, because we might realize in the grand scheme of things, that something is taking you out of commission from using your resources and it might not be value providing to your clients, to your customers or to your business.

 

So one of the other things you're going to want to look at is the flow. So if you have all of your steps there, and let's say you have a widget that you are creating. So for me, it could be a podcast. It could be a video. And I have a series of steps. Is that one thing, that one episode, making it's way all the way through those steps? Or does it get stuck somewhere?

 

This could also be for a client pipeline. So if you have a series steps that a client would go through or how they would interact with a website or how they would make a transaction purchase, anything like that, you can have the different steps and then you can watch.

 

How is that one widget going through?

 

Or that one client, sorry, clients are not widgets. Okay. Clients are people.

 

So what is their process? Their experience like, are they getting stuck at any part? Cause you want this to be a pleasant journey for any of them. So if they're getting stuck, you want to go and figure out that one step, why are they getting stuck?

 

What is it that you can adjust so that it's easy to flow through there?

 

And then for your whole process, to get through all of the steps, whether you're making a widget or a client's going through a whole series of steps:

 

How long does it take for the whole process?

 

So I know for entrepreneurs, especially coaches, we have different processes we can follow. We can do organic marketing in order to meet people, let them know that we're a coach, make an offer.

 

You know, however we do it. There's lots of ways that we can make that happen.

 

Now, from when we meet someone all the way to when someone decides to be a client that could take a variable amount of time, right? If you want to stay in business, keep everything going smoothly. You want to try to find the fastest, easiest process for everybody involved.

 

So knowing how much time does it take from when you first meet someone all the way to the very end?

 

How much is that taking? How much time calendar days here. And is that okay? Or is there something in the process that you don't need to do or something that could be done, but it takes a shorter amount so that all of you can get to that end point faster when you have all of the details of your process. All of those steps, the details that you can also look at.

 

What capability is needed for each step?

 

So like when I first started doing podcasting, there are a lot of pieces that are required for a podcast. I had to learn so many different skills that it took me more than two weeks to create my very first podcast episode. And now I can do it in about three to five hours, depending on how much I have invested in like the prep time that I'm coming up with, what I'm going to talk about on each episode. But there's all of the technical stuff to figure out.

 

And when we first start doing something, it's going to take us so much longer because we just learned how to do it. And that was one of my things I'd beat myself up. Just being honest, Because I know you guys are probably going through the same thing.

 

When you have a new process, you think, Oh, okay, that should be easy. That should take me, you know, an hour. And then all of a sudden it takes you like five hours and you're beating yourself up thinking that you're not good at any of this. And you know, it's just, you're never going to be successful.

 

Of course you're not good at it yet, because you're just learning.

 

It's okay to have grace with yourself that when you have a brand new skill, it's going to take you longer in the very beginning.

 

And eventually you're going to get really fast because it's going to be second nature. You're not going to have to mentally think about all of the little details for it. You're just going to do it in your sleep almost. So be nice.

 

Be nice to yourself.

 

Okay. And then when you do have all of your process steps, at some point you might decide that that is going to be more than just one person doing this. So when you have it broken out by steps, you can assign each step to somebody different.

 

I want to go back a little bit to just the capability one. So in the entrepreneur world, it is quite possible that we get sucked into shiny object syndrome. So we've heard about identifying what your niche will be, right? The more specific that you can define yourself as do what you work on, how you help people they'll know exactly what you're doing, right? And you'll know what you're doing.

 

So if you imagine being an entrepreneur, you have so many different processes and you have lots of different steps. And then in those steps are all of the different skills and capabilities that you need to learn. And there might be software and other connections that you have to figure out when we're talking about all of the niches.

 

It's those specific steps within larger processes. And it's those specific skills that you're trying to learn. So as an entrepreneur, I might have 10 different processes that I have to do at any given time. Any of those processes, let's say each one has 10 steps just to try to make it easy.

 

Process 1: Create website (step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, etc.)

 

Process 2: Create a podcast (step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, etc.).

 

Process 3: Create a program (step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4,etc.).

 

Process 4: Create videos to use for marketing (step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, etc.).

 

Process 5: Creating engaging social media marketing including graphic design (step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, etc.).

 

Process 6: Nurturing potential clients (step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, etc.).

 

Process 7: Providing service to the client (step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, etc.).

 

Process 8: Using Analytics to learn & optimize (step 1, step 2, step 3, ,step 4, etc.).

 

Process 9: Using Productivity tools to streamline (step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4, etc.).

 

Process 10: Using Strategy to grow business (step 1, step 2, ,step 3, step 4, etc.)

 

So now I have 100 different steps that I follow in my business, all of those, every single one of them, there is a different teacher out there

 

They're offering a course. They're have a book. They might be a coach. A hundred different opportunities. And of course you have more than one. That more than one person or company that offers to help with each of those. So if you have not sequenced out what your process is, what step it is and where you need to develop your capability, then you're going to see all of these different things being presented to you. Of, Hey, you need to develop this skill. You need to develop this skill. You need to learn this thing and that thing, and this thing, you could have a hundred different things being presented to you.

 

Do you need to learn them all? Yes. Right? You can learn it on your own through experimentation, or you can choose to have a teacher or a coach help you through it. But here's the thing. If you have a hundred things thrown at you all at the same time, of course, you're going to feel overwhelmed.

 

You're definitely going to have shiny object syndrome and you start to beat yourself up over it. Because there's just so much of it. You think there's something wrong with you. But there's not.

 

Reality is if you are new into the entrepreneur world, there is a lot to learn. How you can help yourself though, is by deciding:

 

What are the different processes within your business?

 

What are the steps for those?

 

And then sequencing out.

 

What do you need to focus on first?

 

Right? Because if you focus on something that you don't need for a couple of years, you're wasting your time right now. I'm gonna let that one sit with you for a second. If you are focusing your time right now, learning something that you're not going to need for two years, you're wasting your time.

 

So I'm going to share it when I was starting out in 2018, doing my first clarity book. Well, actually, I don't know if it was my very first clarity steps workbook, but one of the initial ones. And I didn't really have everything sequenced out yet because I was still trying to figure out what's everything that I need to know. So anything that got presented to me, it was fair game because I didn't know all of the stuff, the full end to end of what it takes to start a business.

 

So the very first thing that I signed up for was how to automate your processes.

 

Okay. So automation comes all the way towards the end, right? There's so much that you have to figure out in a business. How to do all the automation is at the very end, because if you don't even know what your product is, what your service is, all of the steps, all of the processes, all of that. How can you automate it?

 

Right. But I didn't know any different. I didn't have someone there who was like, okay, here's everything you need to know. Just, you know, high-level end to end visual. So I'll take that back. I did have somebody who was trying to tell me all of the stuff, but it was all audio. We were talking over the phone, I'm a visual learner. So I needed to see everything like in one picture, what's everything I need to know, what sequence do I need to know this? And then I'd have a better idea of which shiny object to grab first.

 

So I grabbed something way earlier. Now I am doing automation. Now, here it is 2021. I started doing my automation part of it, the last quarter of 2020. So that was more than two years after I took that course. And so I had to go back and try to find all of that. It wasn't that easy to find it. So I definitely got in over my head at the very beginning, I was getting way too into the weeds on everything. I needed to start off at a different place.

 

Each person only has 24 hours in their day.

 

You're going to want to optimize the time. Make sure that you're focusing on the things that are relevant and applicable to you at that exact moment.

 

So what I would recommend is to know your different processes, figure out your steps for those processes, and then focus on one process at a time. And even more specifically, one step at a time, work that step, figuring it out that one thing.

 

Once you've figured out everything there and it's working, then go onto the next step. Don't jump ahead to like step number eight of that process because it doesn't matter how great step number eight is. If you can't get past step number two, no one else is going to use that one yet. So one step at a time let's get into our final section of causes for process obstacles.

 

The Nitty Gritty of Requirements Keep Emotions in Check

 

So this is the requirements. So you have your processes, you have your steps of each process. Between the steps you have the requirements.

 

So requirements are things like handoff times when you're supposed to do things when you're supposed to complete them by, and some of the quality around that step. Though, you'd know that this could be the cause when your emotional flare gun is going off. And the feelings that you're feeling are around self judgment, that you're thinking that this is taking you too long, or that if there's somebody else that was involved, that all of a sudden you find yourself blaming someone like it's all their fault. If they weren't such a "duh."

 

And now all of a sudden you're judging the heck out of them as a person. Good chance that it's because their requirement wasn't met. This is also where backlogs can let you know that there's probably a requirement that wasn't met.

 

If you have a process and let's say it's seven steps long, and all of a sudden at step number three, you have a huge number of things that are waiting. And then you have the next step that's sitting there like, okay, where is everything? You've got a problem with your requirements. With that handoff from one step to the next step.

 

Easy visual: Baton pass off.

 

So if you have two people running around the track, one person is standing there ready to run. Their hand is extended backwards to grab the Baton from the person who's running with them. If you haven't established where you're going to be standing and how to put that Baton into thier hand, like all of that, you might have someone coming and dropping a Baton three feet before it even gets to you. Or they might come and they might slap it in your hand so hard that it hurts, or they might run past you. You have to chase them to get the Baton, right?

 

So coming up with those requirements, it is to create that easy handoff from one person to the next. And each person will have their own specific requirements. So you're just trying to iron out the details of what are all of those requirements for both people, so that you can easily pass that the baton off. I always like that analogy.

 

Things are easy when all 3 parts of processes are in place

 

Guys. So we covered quite a bit of stuff in this episode. So we were looking at the three main causes of process obstacles. So very first one that you don't know all of your different processes, that it's just a vague jumble of stuff. So flush those out. What are your processes? You can just call them by a name. Just have a list of here's my 10 different processes. I'm going to call this one "Process A", "Process B", "Process C" Whatever it is.

 

Next one, know the steps of those processes and experiment with each one of those. One by one, to get them good. Don't expect the whole thing to be great right off the bat. Don't try to boil the ocean all at one time. Focus on one process and one process step at a time.

 

And then finally, do you know all of the requirements? Do you have it known for each of those steps? Is it communicated out in visual form and is it being met? And if it's not met, do you know whose requirement it was to meet and then have that conversation with that person.

 

In podcast, episode number three, called Tame the Uproar, I went into some specific details around requirements. So if that's one that you'd like to listen to, go check that out. I also shared a tool. There's a free downloadable tool that will help you with any of the process and figuring out the requirement steps for each of those. So go check out podcast, episode number three, Tame the Uproar. That will really help you out.

 

So in the unshakable group coaching programs and my one-on-one programs, I help to resolve mindset and process obstacles. At any time during our coaching calls, I'm listening constantly for what your obstacles are. I have a ton of tools that I've used throughout my whole career. So I will know what tool to pull up for you and I'll help to lead you through that.

 

So this is still developing your capability at being able to do this. Honoring your own decisions. So I show you the tool. I help you to fill it out. So I'm not going to tell you the answers, you fill it out yourself. But I'm there asking you all of the questions to help you get it. All right, so that you can understand your obstacle. You can find the root cause and you can resolve it so I can help you at any stage with any of your processes. So this could be defining any new processes. It can be flushing out the ones that you already have or resolving any of the obstacles in any processes that you have.

 

If you're having a hard time transitioning between your processes and the specific activities and how that would line up in your schedule, that's also something that I can help you with. So just to remind you, I spent 13 years working at Genentech. So this is a very large biotech company, part of the Roche company. And we had a thousand people at the site that I worked at. So all of the processes for manufacturing medicine, this was the world's largest biotech manufacturing facility in the whole world .That's where I worked. Defining all of the processes that go into making all of the medicines. Keeping it all compliant, testing it, everything. And also all of the facility keeping it up and going and worked with the other sites. So at Genentech, we had five sites globally, so international, and then also as part of Roche, there were 17 sites. So I had a factor in that too. Of helping with some of those global processes. So whether you are a solopreneur or you have a more complex business, I've got you covered. I've got experience in both areas.

 

So my coaching's available through unshakable. So that's the group coaching program that comes with two coaching calls every week. And we just take turns, getting individualized, customized one-on-one support. And then I also offer the one-on-one. So if you have a whole lot of stuff, you might want to consider doing the one-on-one so that you get a lot more time just for you and your processes.

 

All right my friends, I hope that you have a wonderful week. I hope you start looking, trying to see all the processes in your life. You'll be like, darn it. Why did Gretchen have to tell us all about that? But it'll make your life easier. I promise. All right. Have a great week. I'll talk to you soon. Bye bye.

 

Thank you, you for listening to my freedom growth podcast, I can't wait to work with you directly. I'll help you to be your authentic self, to have amazing relationships and to live your purpose. I invite you to check out unshakable men and unshakable women. The unshakable programs will give you all of the tools, the coaching and the community to help you rise in life, relationships, and business. To learn more, go to my freedom grove.com forward slash work with me. I can't wait to see you there.

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Thank you for listening to My Freedom Grove podcast. I can't wait to work with you directly. I'll help you to be your authentic self, to have amazing relationships and to live your purpose. I invite you to check out unshakable men and unshakable women. The unshakable programs will give you all of the tools, the coaching and the community to help you rise in life, relationships, and business. To learn more, go to myfreedomgrove.com/work with me. I can't wait to see you there.