What Are You NOT Seeing From The Inside of Your Business?
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Transcript
Welcome to doula tips and tits. This podcast is a place where we answer one question about doula work, both to support you and to help you support your clients. I'm Kaylee Harrod. I've been supporting families in this perinatal space since my oldest was born, 12, nearly 13 years ago.
I am a birth and postpartum doula childbirth educator, La Leche League leader, and a doula coach. I love guiding and supporting doulas as they work out their doula business. It is a tremendous joy to be trusted in this way.
Thank you for joining us on this journey. Welcome back to doula tips and tips. Excuse the fact that my voice sounds a little bit scratchy today. Um, I am losing my voice a little bit and that I needed to record still.
So here we are. Um, I want to just talk about your business needing some outside eyes. Now I know we talked a little bit about what coaching looks like in the business and what it can look like to have perspective from the outside, but what I don't think I really emphasized enough and what I want to emphasize today is that it is really easy for you to miss things when you're the only one looking at your business, right?
And it's really easy for you to burn out, for you to be ready to throw in the towel, and for you to not have the perspective you need to have when you're looking at your own business. I want to give you a real life example of this for me.
So I've mentioned a number of times I have a doula coach named, um, not a doula coach, I have a business coach named Leanne. She is wonderful. Um, and recently I've been sort of in a funk for myself and I reached out to her one day and was kind of like, I don't know what to do next.
Like I don't know what steps to take, right? Like I'm just feeling a little stuck. Like I don't know if I'm doing the right things, if I'm not doing the right things, if I need to add something, if I need to take something away.
Because again, like when you're the only one looking at your business, it is really easy to think you are missing something or that like it's all, nothing is working and you need to stop at all or whatever, right?
Part of that is like I've talked about in the past episodes that your personal life is so wrapped up in your business life. And I think that is really, really, really, really important to recognize and to really live in that reality because busy seasons of your personal life or emotional seasons of your personal life, seasons filled with grief, seasons filled with hardship, those things are going to impact your business and that just is a reality of where you are in life, right?
And I think there needs to be space for that. But there also needs to be space for you to have people who can say to you, you don't need to give up. Like this is not useless, right? This is not hopeless.
This is not the end of the business. And I think that is invaluable honestly. Like there are certainly moments where I would have just thrown in the towel in my business in the last two years had it not been for my coach.
In large part because I was starting new offers that feel very big and scary, right? And so I'm kind of branching into this new piece of this new type of business or as my coach likes to say, I'm running two businesses.
My one business coaches doulas and trains doulas. My other business coaches families, right? And trains families and doulas families. And those are two different audiences and two different groups that I'm kind of selling to.
And it is a lot, right? It's hard. And I think recognizing that and being okay with that is good. And also you need somebody on the outside who's like, Hey, I see you doing this and you really can do this.
I mean, honestly, how many of these things are perfect analogies with our work as doulas? I can't tell you how many times I've locked eyes with someone in labor and they've been like, I'm not sure I can do this either verbally or with their eyes.
And I'm like, you got this. Like I see you doing it. I know you can do it. You, you got this. You're almost done, right? Or like your kid's coming. I have like a few, I feel like there are some moments and births that are like really stick out to me, right?
And I have one or two from most births I've attended, I would say. And so hundreds of these little moments. And recently I had a couple really fast, like really unexpected quick labors that I, either the end was quick or something about it was like unexpected where the person in labor for sure felt like it was never gonna happen and they could not do it.
And there was a moment of like, you have all the strength you need for this. And they're like, I'm choosing to believe you essentially. Not that much words, not that many words, not that much vocalizing because someone in labor is not having a whole conversation with you.
These were all unmedicated folks. One, unintentionally unmedicated. And so when we're thinking about our businesses, we need that too. Like we need someone to like make eye contact with us and be like, you got this.
You can do this. Like this is what you're gonna do next. And that's your next step. And that's what you need to focus on. Don't look at how you're gonna get to five years from now because that might be overwhelming right now.
Like you can dream about five years from now, but don't try to figure out the logistics. That's not doable right now. What right now I want you to work on is taking a step back and looking at your business and thinking like, okay, what am I missing here?
What could someone else encourage me in that I'm not seeing? And I wanna encourage you to reach out. Like connect with me. I would love to chat with you about this. I would really love to hear what your things are that you're struggling with, but also consider if it is time to have some coaching in your doula business, right?
Because if you feel stuck, you probably do need coaching, whether it's a whole coaching package or just one day, one hour session, like you need something. Someone to look at your business and be like, here, here are three things that you could change.
And that's how you're gonna get to where you want to be. And of course you have to then do those things, right? Like it's not just about someone magically telling you what to do, but also about you following through on the things that you're being told.
So I hope that's encouraging for you. I wanna just be real. Like I don't ever wanna make it seem like everything is like amazing and wonderful and blissful in my business and my life. That is not the case.
Like this has been a really hard year. And for me personally, like my ankle, my family, like so many different things that have happened this year that have just been incredibly challenging. And my clients are amazing.
That never fails, right? Like my postpartum clients, my birth clients are awesome and it doesn't make life easy, right? And so there are still times when I need just as much encouragement as any other business owner needs.
And that's normal. Like that is what business is. Like you need someone to be like, hey, you got this. You can keep going and you should keep going. What you're doing is worth continuing, right? So that you don't just throw in the towel on something that could be changing lives.
So anyway, I hope that's encouraging to you. I'm excited to hear, to see you in the next couple episodes and to hear what things you may be struggling with in your business. I'll talk to you in the next episode.
Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Dula Tips and Tits podcast. If you learned something today or had an aha moment, we'd love for you to share that on Instagram and tag us at hiradula so we can celebrate alongside you.
If you found this podcast helpful, we would so appreciate you taking a second to leave a rating and a review on your favorite podcast app. That helps other doulas find us as we do this work together.
This podcast is intended as educational and entertainment. It is not medical advice or business advice. Please consult your own medical or legal team for your own needs around your health and your business.
We'll see you again soon.
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Being a solo business owner is lonely, and hard and sometimes feels discouraging. The reality is that all of those are because of the fact that you have only your own eyes on the business SO much of the time. Doula work is already done almost entirely alone, so business needs to be done in community!
Quote from the show:
“I want to just talk about your business needing some outside eyes. Now I know we talked a little bit about what coaching looks like in the business and what it can look like to have perspective from the outside, but what I don't think I really emphasized enough and what I want to emphasize today is that it is really easy for you to miss things when you're the only one looking at your business”
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Kaely Daily is produced by Kaely Harrod of Harrod Doula Services
It is sponsored by The Birth Prep Blueprint Childbirth Class
Music by Madirfan: Hidden Place on Pixabay
