My Personal Struggles In Business

in between. So, whether you're in business yourself already, maybe you're not in the game at all, perhaps you're looking for some inspo, or you simply just want to hear the tea when it comes to running a business, this is the podcast for you. Now. Coming up on today's episode, I'm going to be sharing with you some of the things I find really challenging in business, and as I'm

sure you can guess, there's a billion things. But I'm going to share with you my top challenges that I mentally deal with every single day, and I think a lot of them stem from my own inner bully, just always bullying myself that I need to be doing absolutely everything to the best of my ability, and that I always have to be perfect and I can never put my own feelings first because everyone else matters more than me. So without further ado, let's just get straight into it

and get down to business. Tell you why I'm loving this pod, It's because I feel like it's also a personal diary. I don't do journaling or anything like that, but I feel like this podcast, in particular is my personal journal and diary. I get to sit down here every Monday and kind of just spill the beans on what's on my mind. So today I'm going to be chatting with you about some of the things that I

find challenging as a business owner. And I know I've said this a billion times, but business is just challenging in general. There's a billion things that I could talk about. But in saying that, I don't think having challenges is necessarily a negative thing. I think you can learn a lot from all of the challenges that you go through

in business. But I'm just going to share with you some of my challenges that I think about often or am faced with often, and maybe someone can relate or maybe not feel so alone in their own challenges, because let's be honest, life is full of challenges, let me tell you. So let's just get straight into it. One of the things that I find challenging as a business owner is the pressure that you put on yourself to feel perfect at doing everything, especially in my position where

I am the CEO of the company. I'm also the founder of the company. I started the thing from scratch and have built it out to where it is now. And now it's not just me anymore. There's sixty plus other people involved in this thing, and I think a lot of business owners and entrepreneurs and especially those that have started it from the beginning and are still very heavily in it. Like me, I feel so much pressure.

Not that anyone puts this pressure on me, but I feel pressure for myself that I have to be perfect at everything, and by that I mean I feel like I have to be the perfect entrepreneur. I have to come up with every idea that's going to move the

company forward. Yes, I've got lots of other people in my team that are helping bring ideas to life and move the business forward, but I feel immense pressure from who, No one from me, But I feel immense pressure that I am solely the one that's going to make this thing keep moving forward. And I feel that pressure more and more with the continued growth of my business. I just feel like it all falls back on me, and

that's a really scary thing to deal with mentally. And then at the same time, there are so many other things that I feel like I need to be perfect at. So not only do I feel like I have to be the perfect entrepreneur who is always innovating, always coming up with the next thing, always trying to be ahead of everyone else, I then feel like I have to be the perfect boss. And being an entrepreneur and being a boss are literally two different things, like they are

not related. I think it's actually impossible for someone to be the best entrepreneur and then the best manager. Like you can be a fucking fantastic manager and you can absolutely nail that, but then it's really hard to also be a fantastic entrepreneur. And I think as a founder, I just put pressure on myself that I need to be perfect at both of those things. And that's just two things I feel like I need to do perfectly. And by that I mean in my role, I'm obviously

in charge of continuing to move our company forward. I'm always thinking of the next marketing idea for us to do. I'm always thinking of the next collection that we're going to come out with. And yes, I've got people obviously helping me in all of these areas. Now I couldn't do all of this on my own, but I think it's just being that owner founder that I feel like

it all falls back on me. And then I also like think, you know, for example, on Mondays, I come down to the podcast and I always think, fuck, like what if someone needs me back in the office today, or I feel bad if I'm not there for someone, And it's crazy because as big as fate has gotten,

the more I've felt that way. What's wild is I have people working for my company that I've never even met, and then I feel this guilt that I should be getting around to all of our stores to make sure I know everyone, and that I should be managing everyone directly and helping them in their role and asking them if they're okay. And then I have this guilt that I don't do that. But I think that's just me putting unrealistic expectations on myself. But I think that feeling

will never ever go away. Another thing that I feel is challenging is always feeling the pressure, especially being like a social media based business, and I'm sure every business would feel this, just feeling that constant pressure of needing to stay on top of your game on social media, always making sure that we jump on the trends, or we always try to have the mindset of we need to set the trend because you don't want to seem like you're copying everyone all the time, and just always

having our finger on the pulse when it comes to social media, like jumping on that trend, creating that trend. That's another pressure that I feel. I think, just all in all, a thing that I find challenging is feeling like I need to be doing all of the things all at once perfectly. And I also feel I make up scenarios in my head that everyone expects that of me,

which is really wild. For example, our office and our warehouse are separate now, so for the entire history of Fate, since the very beginning, the office and warehouse have always been in the same building, and we've moved a lot, as you would know, over the years. We've gone from one or we've gone from my shed to a little bit bigger shed, and then like we had our shop and our warehouse and our office all in one building

at one point. Then we had our second last warehouse, and you know, the office was there in the warehouse, and then was it this year that we moved Who fucking knows, I'm pretty sure it was this year our office and warehouse separated for the first time, so our team got split in half, and that was a huge decision for us to make because people that saw each other every day have since been split up. And by doing that, I think it's been great in a lot

of ways. I think our office has become a lot more serious since splitting from the warehouse, because the warehouse is kind of chaotic and fun and music blaring every day, and the fact that our office used to be upstairs, like there'd be a lot of crossover and you go downstairs to go to the toilet and you say hello to everyone in the warehouse kind of thing. And ever since we've split our office and warehouse, our office has gotten a whole lot more serious, less like joking around,

which has been really interesting to see. But my job is partly in the office and partly in the warehouse, So every day I'm either at the office or warehouse, or a lot of the times i'll go to the office in the morning, then go over to the warehouse and then I might stay at the warehouse for the rest of the day, or I might head back to

the office in the afternoon. And I feel guilt And this is one hundred percent just on me, Like it's no expectation from anyone on my team, but I feel, Oh, if I'm spending too much time at the warehouse, what does everyone at the office think I'm doing? And I know that's so dumb. And then I'll always message me like, hey, girls,

like I'm working with SIGGI in the warehouse today. If anyone needs me, like, just send me a message, Like all of my staff know, especially my staff that I work with every day, Like you can message me at any point and I will help you. But I like guilt trip myself into thinking my staff at the office, for example, are going to think I'm never there because

I'm at the warehouse. And it's just it's like you get in your own head and build these own expectations that you think your team has of you, that they're gonna be going, Oh, Brittany's just at the warehouse again today, Or like if I spend let's say one week, I'm really heavily in the office. Then I always think the warehouse staff can be like, well, where's Britney kind of thing.

That's another challenge that I've found myself facing in my own mind since we've split those two things, is spreading myself evenly enough that I'm always seeing because you hear you know a lot of people work for companies. It's like, oh, the CEOs never hear kind of thing. And I would hate for anyone to feel that way about me, And I think that's like a fear I have in my head, and it's just really tricky finding that balance, especially with

how much we're growing. Is just feeling pressure to be everywhere at the same time helping everyone immensely, and I don't know, I just I have this guilt surrounding it. It's definitely a challenge that I deal with every single day. Coming from my background of obviously being a YouTuber and influencer and content creator, I struggle a little bit these days to find the balance between working and creating content.

Now you ask anyone or you may know yourself, creating content is one of those things that's always so difficult for everyone, like finding the time to make content and I think I myself in particular, because I was a content creator for a full time job for so many years and I shared my day to day life on YouTube and Instagram and everything. I really struggle sometimes to keep up with that, and I struggle to keep up with my personal brand, you know, of like doing my

instert stories and everything when I'm working full time. And now I know being an influencer is a job. Obviously I have loads of friends who are influencers for a job. But when influencers go, oh, I've just been so busy, I haven't done any story today, I'm like, for fuck's sake, for fuck's sake, because that used to be me, that used to be my job, and I'd be like, oh, thor I haven't made a video this week. It's like,

what the fuck have you been doing? Honestly, I find it really tricky, you know, when it comes to posting on social media in a multitude of ways. Now. Number one, because I'm working every day, like I work five days a week, and then you know, it's I find it really tricky to like document my day on my stories like I have for many years, because I just get to work and then my day is about everyone else,

Like my day isn't about me. If I want to go to work and get anything done myself, I can't because if I'm going into work, I'm there to you know, work with everyone else. But I just struggle to kind of create content throughout the day. And then every now and then I go, Okay, I'm gonna consciously make an effort to do stories of me at work today and chow around what I am getting up to. And I love doing that because people love seeing what I get up to at work, because I guess it's like a

different field that they're not used to sing. But it's really hard to do that when you're actually just working, like year nine to five or in fate world, it's eight to four, and then I get home at night and I'll catch up with AJ and then I've got a bunch of stuff that i want to do on my laptop, and then we have dinner and whatever, and then I've gotten to the end of the day and I've done no stories. And I sometimes go days these

days without doing stories. I think I have this guilt around not constantly posting on my own social media because that was what I used to do all the time. Another thing that I have found really interesting as well is how much more mindful I have become on social media over the years with the more people that I have hired. You know, I came from this background of again, like making YouTube videos about my life, getting on my story,

talking about whatever's on my mind. And weirdly, now, I mean, there's over sixty people that are employed by Fate, and I haven't fucking gone through and seen how many of them actually follow me. I'm not going to do that, but I'm so mindful. Now. Let's say, like I am laying in bed at night and I want to pull out my phone and talk about something random, like whatever it is. It could be something and AJ and I have spoken about, it could be something that happened at work.

It so is consciously on my mind that people that work for me could be watching this story, and like, how are they going to perceive me after me saying

this thing? And I've always been conscious of what I post online for my entire online career, like ten plus years, but now more than ever, I'm hesitant with how much I share on social media because it plays on my mind that someone that works for my company could watch that and it could affect them essentially, And it's just something that I guess never crossed my mind when I started Fate because again, like I started this and hired AJ's family friend as my first employee, But I never

thought back then, shit, maybe one day I'm going to be more careful with what I share on social media, you know, because it very well may affect someone that works for me, or I may have an opinion that's different to theirs, and that could affect the way they feel about the company that they work for. It's a bit of a slippery slope, I would say. When it comes to being a public figure, I fucking hate call

myself that a public figure. Look, it's so wanky, but you know, like very it's very interesting to have experienced, you know, being a public figure or influencer, whatever you

want to call it. Then stepping into a position where I've got so many people employed by me and by the company that I own, and I pay them every single week, and then I still share my opinion online about things, and I don't know, maybe some other people who are in a similar position to me, where they have a following online or a personal brand or whatever, and then they employ people. Maybe they feel the same.

But I've definitely become more careful over the years about what I say on social media because I think my employees could be watching this, and what are they going to think of me when they see me at work the next day. It's really fucking alien, if I'm being honest. I think it's also made me more mindful of how much I share about my personal life online. Back in those YouTube days, I would share everything, as a lot of you would know if you followed me. Way back then,

I would share things about my relationship. I remember I had a massive public breakup and I shared all about that. But I think I share a lot less now, and I think that all comes down to what I do for a job and my business. And whilst it still might feel like I share a lot of my personal life, I don't really like. I share small bits here and there. I'll update everyone in my house, talk about fun little things, but there's so much that happens in my personal life

that I don't share online anymore. And I think it's because I feel like I have employees watching my story and it makes me self conscious. I guess another thing that I find challenging in business that every business owner would definitely find challenging is looking at your daily sales and panicking if you have a slow day or a slow week or a slow month. And I think, again, no matter how successful a business becomes, I don't think that feeling would ever go away for a lot of people.

And I'd be lying if I said that I'm just fully confident every day. I'm fully confident in fate every day, and we're only continuing to grow and grow. But I do feel a certain type of way, like, obviously you get into a groove in your business and you know kind of how much you make every week and what your daily sales are. But it's scary when you have a slow week or when our stores all have a

slow weekend. And what's interesting with having different stores in all different areas is they all kind of have the same flows. Like it's not like one store is always really crazy busy and one store is like drastically different.

I've noticed that Tuesdays are the lowest days for retail, and all of the stores like they send us an end of day email at the end of every day and they'll just give us a little recap on how the day went, They've got slow day today, and it'll be all of them like they all have the same slow day. So it's really hard, especially in like retail and especially online retail, coming off the back of big

things and going back to low periods. So for example, like if you do a massive sale or something like obviously your sales are going to be through the roof when you do a big sale, or it's Black Friday, or maybe you've launched a huge collection that you've hyped up for ages. You get like a really big high

when that happens, like you've made all this money. Or like let's say, for example, when we open our paramount a store next month, like that, there's going to be so much excitement around there and we're going to have

like a really big sales period. And then when you come off the back of that, that's like the scary time because I know, you just get so hyped up when you've done something amazing or had an amazing month or an amazing week, and it's when you go back into that lull that you feel a certain type of way. And I guess in the back of my mind, and I've said this before on the pod, like I think every business owner knows like it's gonna have its highs

and lows. And then I read all these articles about these companies going into administration and liquidation, and then I think, fuck, what if that's me one day? Like you just have this fear that you will never not have, I think that not everything lasts forever. So then again I put this pressure on myself that this is all on me, Like if our stores have a quiet weekend, I'm laying in bed thinking, how the fuck can I get more

people into our stores. It's not all on me to get the customers in the door, but I feel that challenge that it is on me that I need to get customers in the door. And I always speak about our community. We have the strongest community at Fate, and I'm sure all of you know, like our community are always asking us to open that next door, like when

you're opening here camera Hobart everywhere. I feel pressure from our community to keep expanding, which is the most amazing thing ever for any business to be in the position where your own customers are asking you to open more stores near them. I think that's a great problem to have, and I am working extremely hard to try and make that happen for our community opening those new stores near them, which is a lot because people live in lots of

different places. But then I feel even more pressure when my mindset is I need to open more stores, I need to keep growing this thing. Our community is asking for it. But then when we have a quiet weekend in the stores, and then I go, is this fucking worth it? Like I want me to open more, but like our stores had a slow Sunday, and I panic and I start working out how much we made that day versus how many people were working in the fact that they were all on Sunday rates and rent and

this and that and the other. That is a challenge that I face with wanting to expand but then having slow periods. Ellie's in the studio with me today's and isn't here, But she just asked, can I log on at any point and see how we're going, you know, each day? And do I do that often? Yes? I can.

It's in the palm of my hand. And it's even easier for me to look at now because up until now we used to have two separate point of sales essentially, so for online we used Shopify, or we still used Shopify, and then for in store we had Square, so like two different things, and for the history of Fate, it's always been that way, like our stores had Square and online with Shopify, and just recently over the last few months, we've rolled out Shopify point of sale into all of

our stores so that everything can be connected. Square was great and I can definitely recommend Square, like I've used it for however many years, four or five years that I've had retail stores, and we still have Square in our cafe, but we were running into a lot of roadblocks with customers. Let's say they bought something online and then they bring it into the store, but it wasn't put through their system, so it was creating like a

bit of a logistical nightmare for us. Whereas now we've rolled out Shopify Pause to all of our stores, so it's all on the one system. So if customers bring in their online order, they can just go bang bang bang on their little tablet and like process a return immediately, whereas they used to have to go on the laptop and log into Square and you know all that kind

of stuff. So I always have looked at out online sales because I've got the Shopify app on my phone, so I can just open it up and there it is, like in the palm of my hand. But then I never really used to check how the stores would go because then I would like have to log into the Square app, and it's one of those apps that kicks you out every time you need you got to log back in, then you got to get a security code,

blah blah blah blah. So I never used to like check how the stores were going as much, but I have always kept an eye online. But since we've switched over, it's all on Shopify now, so when I log in, I can see it all right there, like as a total of what we've made for the day, and then

you can break it down by location. And I will say, since we have integrated them all together, I'm looking at it more because it's all there, and it's like a bad addiction, to be honest, you do become obsessed with kind of looking at the numbers and a, hey, I guess it's a good thing. If you are in business, you absolutely want to know what your sales are every single day. And I've spoken with business owner friends, for example Anita from Hero Packaging for a long time there.

She had an accountant, like we have an accountant too, But Anita thought because they had an accountant that the numbers were all good and she didn't feel the need to like closely look at the numbers. And she regrets that immensely because it all kind of went wrong for

a bit there with her business. So it's definitely important to look at your numbers, but it's hard at the same time because then you're obsessively looking at those numbers and wondering why the numbers are lower one day, and then it all goes back to what I spoke about at the start with being a owner, founder, CEO. I feel like, if those numbers are low, it's my fault, which is the weirdest feeling. And then I'm thinking, fuck,

what can we do on social media? Next? I need to make more sales and more money, because at the end of the days, that's the goal, right, It's to make more money to keep the business moving forward. And I definitely feel the bigger that fate has gotten over the years, the more pressure I have put on myself because there's more at stake, there's more to lose, there's more bills, there's more expenses, there's more staff pays, there's

more superannuation to pay. So I definitely just feel a lot of pressure all in all with everything, like it's all my fault if it goes wrong, and I don't think I'll ever escape that feeling. And I think that's a normal feeling no matter what kind of business you're in or at what point you're in your business journey, the feeling never goes away. So if any of you are feeling that that immense pressure that it's all falling back on you, I'm right there with you. I mean,

I could go on. I only wrote a few of these in my phone as little like little thoughts. Last night I wrote this down, but I could go on and list a million more things. I almost want to get like a psychologist on here one time or something and tell them all these feelings that I have and they could unpack it for me, so kind of like

a therapy session. But on a big business episode, we need like an entrepreneur psychiatrist to come on, because I'm sure that all the feelings that we feel as entrepreneurs and business owners and leaders and bosses and managers, I'm sure there's like a psychological explanation as to why we feel all the things that we feel. And I know

that all these feelings that I have are valid. And if any of you are in the same position where you just feel this constant pressure from everything but you don't know where it's coming from, I'm right there with you. And at the end of the day, the feelings come from ourselves, and I think it's I don't know who else speaking to or iris from the quick flick she was talking about how she just always has that inner

bully within herself. I think it's definitely that it's just that pressure that we put on ourselves to be the best at all the times, and if anything's going wrong, it's all on you. And I think that's something that we have to accept as business owners, and when you're starting a business, like I had no idea that i'd feel these feelings back in the day when I started Fate because I had no idea what I was doing.

But it is completely normal to always feel pressure as a business owner, and I think it's important to not let that pressure consume you. I think it's important to stop and smell the roses. I spoke with Tommy in my episodes that I did with him from wedding chats. He's very big on celebrating all the wins and I'm absolutely all for that. And just know, if you are feeling any of these feelings that I've spoken about in

today's ep you are not alone. I'm sure it's every single business owner out there feels this type of way, And it doesn't matter where you are in your journey. You could just be starting out, maybe you're a year in, maybe you're two years in, maybe you're a few businesses in. It is so normal to have these feelings, and I wanted to put this out there to normalize having these conversations that we feel as entrepreneurs, because, as you know, it can be a very lonely journey and it can

be stressful and you feel all the pressure. But just know you're absolutely not alone. I'm right there, Bladdy with you. Anyway, my friends, that is today's episode. I feel like it's been a bit negative. I don't mean for it to be. But also, like I say in a lot of my episodes, I don't want this to be a podcast about business that's super boring or just about how great everything is. Because I could obviously make a load of episodes about how great everything is and open in stores and launch

new products and whatever. But I want to talk about the nitty gritties when it comes to business, So that's why I chose this topic for today's e F. As always, I hope you have enjoyed listening. If you haven't already, please feel free to rate my pod five stars and you can keep up to date with me everywhere on socials. You know where to find me. If I disappear for a few days off my stories, it's because I'm busy, bloody working in not prioritizing content. But life's all about balance,

isn't it. I'll be back on Wednesday for my bonus e F and remember to chase after your dreams as if they owe you money.