Welcome to the Grow your independent consulting business podcast. I'm Melisa Liberman, a fellow IC and business coach. On this podcast, I teach you to become a consistently booked independent consultant without becoming a pushy salesperson or working 24/7 if I can do it, you can, too. Listen on to find out how. Welcome to episode 177 of the Grow your independent consulting business podcast. This is Melisa Liberman, and today we're here to talk about something you probably don't want to
talk about. Emotions, but they're so important. As a business owner, I know for me especially, I grew up on a cattle ranch. There's no kind of concept of emotions that mix with business and that cattle ranching sort of setting. So the idea of thinking about emotions or talking about emotions or managing emotions or incorporating emotions into a business model and business plan are definitely
not something that came naturally to me. And you might be in the same boat where, you know, so many of us in corporate are taught to hide our emotions, that being emotional is a sign of weakness. And so here today, I really want to dive into this concept of emotional debt, just one aspect of emotions, this concept of emotional debt, to help you from sabotaging or self sabotaging your business results. So that's what we're here for today. I'm excited to dive into this topic
with you. Just a few things on my end I thought I'd update you on. I just got back from a weekend long swim meet. It's the senior state here in Colorado, so it was the kind of culmination of my oldest son, who's 13, his summer swimming, which is called long course, which is a 50 meters, olympic size pool. So it was really exciting
to see how all of his hard work has paid off. His times were in the top twelve, I think, of the states, and for 1314 year olds and top three to five in the 13 year old, so, so excited for him because he works really hard. He was at the pool every day this summer from seven to nine, basically. So that was really fun to see him do that. And this coming weekend, my husband and I have the state meet for the two younger kids. So ten years old and nine years
old, and they're on a relay team together. So it's like a really fun way to start wrapping up the summer here in Colorado. We start school in only a few weeks, so I'm just not ready for the summer to be over, you might note. I either. But here today, let's just spend a little bit of time refocusing on your business and something that I see so often sabotages independent consultants and really creates plateaus in their business or just makes the
business feels unsustainable for the long run. And I want to help make sure you're aware of this so that you can manage it and avoid it in your business as well. So that's why we're here. So with that, let's dive into the agenda for today. We're going to start off with just talking about what is emotional debt, where this topic came from? And then we'll dive into the impact of carrying emotional debts
and then what it looks like to manage emotional debt. So I'll give you four steps to manage your emotional debt because I guarantee you have emotional debt. We all do. I know about
this concept and I still have it. So it's not something you completely get rid of, but it's something that you can really manage and help yourself to get to the place where you're feeling so much more fulfilled in your business, joyful in your business, successful as a business owner, and not let the negative emotions weigh you down and cause you to feel like this isn't a sustainable situation you're in. So that's the third part of the agenda. Then I will give you
a word of caution. This one's very important. Be sure you hear that part of the episode, the word of caution, because I definitely want to make sure that you don't take this episode in a way that doesn't serve you the most. And then we'll wrap it all up today to put it into action. Okay? So with that, before we dive into the first part of the agenda, I want to encourage you to download the book. Grow your consulting
business. You can find [email protected] simple URL and in there is chapter 16, your business owner mindset. And this concept of managing your emotions is part of that overall system in your business, which is your cultivating your business owner mindset and really making sure that you're thinking about things in a way that sets you up to be effective and to feel confident and successful as a business owner. So that is
chapter 16, your business owner mindset. And you can find the book on Amazon to download it or to buy it in hard copy, or you can find it on my website as a pdfelisabook.com. i will encourage you to go download it sooner than later because most likely I'm going to be changing it. So you can only download the first few chapters. So if you've been putting it off and not yet downloading it, I would go download it now, because here in the next few weeks, I'm most
likely changing it so you can only download the first few chapters. And then I the whole thing on Amazon. All right, so that is the companion resource for you here today. And now let's take a step back and tell you where this episode came from. So I told the client that was the inspiration of this episode, that I would be recording an episode specifically about this for her.
I always love to record episodes based on conversations that I've had with clients in a way that is a tool to help them further the work that we're doing and also giving you a little snap snippets if you're not a client yet, of the type of work we might do together. So this client and I were working together
on her business and refreshing. You know, we're at this point, we're around halfway through the year, so we're really looking at her goals and what she had yet to accomplish from a revenue perspective, which she basically has already hit her revenue goals. We were talking about should she increase it or not. We are talking about what capacity she has for the rest of the year to sell and what types of offers would be ideal for her to sell as part of her business plan for the
rest of the year. And so what we came up with is, as we were talking through this, she kept expressing that she wanted to take time off, that she wanted to take a month off because she wanted to gear up for a busy fall. And then she also wanted to design the capacity. So the amount of client availability that she had to sell, she wanted to really make it very spacious. She wanted to have kind of a week of client delivery and then a week off, and then maybe another week of prep and then a week of
client delivery. She's got kind of an intensive type offer. And so as we were thinking about all of this, that's the way she was describing it to me. I really want all of this spaciousness. I want to give myself a lot of time to prepare for clients and to decompress after client delivery and a month off to gear up for all of this. And I said, great, let's design the business goals that you've got around this spaciousness, and let's also tackle why this client
delivery takes so much out of you. Let's figure out why do you need this spaciousness in the first place. Nothing wrong with the spaciousness. I love designing a business around spaciousness, but also it almost feels kind of trapped, in a way, for her because she feels like she has to create this spaciousness in order to recover. And so what I shared with her and what I'm sharing with you today is let's figure out what's creating this emotional overhead and making it such
an emotional toll to go deliver. So that then if we tackle that, she doesn't feel so constrained in her business model, she could take on as many more clients and less spaciousness in terms of time off if she wanted to, doesn't have to, but it gives her so much more autonomy and flexibility when she doesn't feel like she has to really gear up for delivery, then roll up her sleeves and deliver, and then
have this long period of recovery afterward. And so that's what we ended up starting to tackle, and that's what I want to share with you here today, as well as her, to hear what we talked about in a slightly different forum in this podcast to further take the work that we did together to a deeper level. So with that, let's talk about, just take a step back and talk about what is emotional debt. So it may be a concept out there is something I kind of made up on the fly as I was talking with her
that really is based off of the concept of technical debt. So if you've been in software development in any capacity, you're probably aware of this concept of technical debt. Technical debt refers to the cost of additional rework caused by choosing an easy solution now, instead of using maybe a better approach that is more costly. So let me give you an example of what I'm saying here. When you're running through a software development process, there are sets of priorities. There
are features and functions that the end users want. There are features and functions that perhaps the engineering department needs. There are features and functions that your customer service department needs in order to support that software. You've got all of these different stakeholders. The sales team is probably asking for things for future sales. And so you've got all of these different requests when you're building
software. And so then you've got to decide what you're going to build out of all of those features which are going to make the cut in terms of the next release. And even within those features that you prioritize, how are you going to
develop them? Sometimes it can be creating a kind of a quick and dirty type of an approach can lead to speed to market, but at the same time, when you have that kind of quick and dirty approach, or a minimum viable product type of an approach, then it ends up creating things you have to fix later to make them more robust
or more scalable, for example. So all of those choices that you make to implement something in a simpler fashion, maybe a less robust fashion, a less scalable fashion, and all of those choices that you make end
up creating what's called technical debt. And so, as we think about that in the context of emotional debt, what I would say emotional debt is this idea of basically dealing with the emotions that you're experiencing in your business at a high level, kind of skimming the surface, getting yourself to the place where maybe you're just ignoring those emotions and just trying to make yourself feel more
positive. It may also look like that you are going through the motions, selling and pricing your work, and avoiding offering something that you think might be rejected because you don't want to deal with the add to the pile of feeling rejected, for example. So over time, as you start making decisions in your business to avoid experiencing the emotions in the real time, you will likely accumulate emotional
debt. Just like the description I gave you about accumulating technical debt when you might be taking what are perceived as shortcuts or implementing things in a more simplistic way. And there's nothing wrong with this technical debt, for example, this is an important tool to use from a speed to market perspective. For example, there's nothing wrong with having
emotions that feel like they're creating debt for you. But the more that you ignore them or the more you don't address them, the more they accumulate and they're just running this sort of undercurrent in your mind that can lead to some really significant negative impacts in your business.
And so that's what I want to talk with you about today, is this concept of emotional debt where you might have been taking shortcuts along the way to avoid the feelings of self doubt, to avoid the feelings of discouragement, to avoid the feelings of failing or being rejected so that you can tackle them head on and lighten that emotional load for yourself, so that then you don't feel so constrained in them, in the types of decisions that you're able to make in your
business. Okay, so now that we have a good baseline of what is this idea of emotional debt, let's talk about the impact of it. I've touched on this a little bit, but if you're unaware of the emotional debt that you're carrying and likely accumulating, if you're unaware of it, it would be very common that you would be accumulating it over time. It's going to result in increased stress in running your business in decreased fulfillment and joy. In running your business in decreased
productivity in procrastination. In avoidance of shifting your business model from staff augmentation to more strategic type work, for example. In avoidance of increasing your rates, for example. It also will create these unnecessary constraints that I was just referring to when I first started out. The episode right where you think you've got to create all this spaciousness because it's so challenging to deliver for your clients. Those are
unnecessary constraints. Again, I am all about spaciousness, so I'm not telling you you shouldn't have spaciousness in your business. What I am saying to you is that these are the emotional side of this doesn't have to create the constraint for you. You can choose just to work one week on and one week off if you want to, but it doesn't have to be because you've got to have so much recovery time,
like the example I shared with you. So the impact is having these constraints that are unnecessary for you in the way that you deliver what you offer for your clients, how much money you make, and ultimately the impact can be that you burn out. Decide that this is just not a sustainable business model for you. That's why this concept is so important for you to tackle as part of being a business owner. So let's
bring this to an even more tangible level. I'll share with you three examples in the way that emotional debt influences how you're running your business and thinking about your business. So the first example I'll remind you of is the one I shared with you at the beginning of this episode where you allow your emotional debt to drive your capacity. So it sounds
like I can't handle it. It might be that you need time off after some kind of a client workshop or client facilitation or some kind of strategy work. It might be that you think that you've got to have that time off. Or it might also look like you feel like your maximum number of clients that you can support is only one or two, when in fact the amount of time, if you just look at it from
a math perspective, might be three or four. But because you've got this emotional debt, accumulating it might reduce your capacity because it feels too hard to handle that number of clients at any one given time. Another example of how this emotional debt can impact you and your business is the type of work you're willing to take on. The emotional debt can be created by second guessing and self doubt, and that talk
track that you might be so familiar with. Where you're constantly guessing, are you qualified enough to become more of a strategic type consultant versus more of an execution or
implementation heavy consultants? And so it's work that you are qualified for, but because of this emotional debt that you've accumulated and this talk track that is likely going on, even subconsciously in your mind about whether or not you truly are qualified to take on more strategic type work, you end up limiting yourself as a result of all of this. So that's another example of the impact of this emotional debt when it goes
unmanaged. And then finally, the another example of the emotional debt is you being able to sustain your business over the long run. I had a client who I was working with who told me, you know, Melisa, I've been doing this for, I don't know, I think it was seven or eight years at that time. And she said, I just don't know if I can continue forward doing this type of work anymore. It's just so stressful. It's so hard. I
don't know if I can keep it up. And so what we realized is that the emotional debt that she had been accumulating and carrying with her and not addressing, which I'll share with you in a moment, how to address it, but that she wasn't really managing, was adding up over time. And at some point it became so heavy and so burdensome, of course she would be questioning whether or not what she was doing with her consulting business was
sustainable. So that gives you a few examples of real life scenarios where this type of emotional debt can come into play and impact your ability to take on work. That's fulfilling, to have longevity in your business, and to really limit your what type of work you're willing to take on if you don't manage it. So I'm going to tell you how to manage it here in a second. And that is this four step process that I'll give you here. I call it the four r's. First is recognizing what emotions are you
experiencing? What emotions are you experiencing? Likely you're a human, you're experiencing a range of emotions. Sometimes we just ignore those and keep going. Sometimes we like to notice the good ones, the ones that feel good and suppress the ones that don't. And a lot of times we end up putting ourselves in a situation that boxes us into a place where we mostly generate what feel like good emotions and avoid doing things that create what are perceived as negative
emotions. So first, you just want to be recognizing what is going on. I love just checking in on a daily basis, like what emotions? What was my predominant emotion today? What did I experience today? And then the next step is, what is the root cause of that? What thinking is creating this emotional impact that's then ultimately potentially leading to the debt. So what is the thinking that's creating this emotional impact? And then redirecting what mindset shifts will lighten that
emotional burden? Ask yourself, what mindset shifts will lighten that emotional burden and then reinforce that awareness, the investigation of the root cause and that redirection, so that you can keep your business feeling lighter, your emotional state feeling lighter and more
sustainable. Let me give you an example as it relates to that first story that I shared with you, with the client who was telling me that it is so intense to deliver the type of work that she delivers with her clients that she wants to put in a week or two of recovery afterward. When we put this into place, this type of model, and start to think about, well, why is it? That's the question, right? That's the most important question. Why is it so emotionally taxing to go deliver for one
of these clients? A lot of times we just take it at face value and say, well, it's emotionally taxing because it's maybe you're on stage or maybe you're running a strategy type of a process. And so it's really incumbent upon you to make sure the process is running smoothly and people's viewpoints are being brought into account. And it feels so like a heavy, heavy burden on you to keep all of these balloons in the air.
For example, ask yourself, just because those things are part of your business doesn't mean that it has to be emotionally taxing. It doesn't mean that even though you're kind of on stage or on points for an extended period of time, that then because of that, of course you would need time to recover. Those two things don't have
to equate to each other. So what I mean by this is, as you're thinking about, and for this client, what she was thinking about is, why is it so emotionally taxing when I'm finished with delivery? And for her, it was for a few reasons, without sharing any personal details, of course. For her was a few reasons. It was, number one, this idea of
emotional debt. So after each and every time that she was engaging with clients, she had a period of self doubt and second guessing afterward, but not necessarily intentionally tackling that. And so when she would go into the next phase, whatever that was, she was bringing along some unmanaged emotional debt. And then the
next time that she would facilitate with a client. It would kind of bring up those questions of self doubt and imposter syndrome and just keep accumulating that debt over and over again. And so what we talked about is, how do you get to the place where you just shorten that amount of time after an intense event with a client so that you then don't have to
have this longer period of recovery? And the answer for her of why this felt so heavy after a period of client delivery was that she recognized so often during the course of the event leading up to the event, or the client delivery effort during it afterward, that there was so much second guessing going on in her mind, wondering, was she approaching it the right way, the best way? What would the client think? What would
each one of the client members be thinking? Just all of these questions that were left unanswered, but just accumulated over and over this self doubt. And so you can imagine how much emotional debt that is created and that emotional experience after each period of client delivery. And so, of course, as a human, she would want to have some recovery time. But again, the question becomes, why is it so emotionally taxing in the first place? And so that was the
recognition, right? It feels so heavy after these events. And then the root cause that we found for her was such a collection of thoughts that created self doubt and second guessing. And so then we started implementing that redirect step that I shared with you, which is, what can she be thinking? Instead of, am I doing this right? Is this working? Will the clients be
happy? What mindset shifts can she take to lighten that emotional burden during the preparation, during the execution of the work that she does, and then ultimately afterward? And so we created a mindset kind of recipe for her so that she could start thinking in different ways that gave her just lighten that emotional burden. It didn't make it so that she went from self doubt to insane level of confidence or positivity. But what it did was allowed her mindset to
get into, for example, just curiosity. I wonder how that went really well. I wonder how the clients were able to take away what they needed to take away, even if we could have approached it in a different way. She's really asking more curiosity based questions that were set up to provide powerful answers instead of to find problems and
then the reinforcing. So putting in a process within her offers, within the service delivery that she has, where this type of work is baked in, so that she's addressing that emotional part of running her business at each step of the process rather than just waiting for time to pass
to try to manage that emotional debt. So that hopefully gives you an example without sharing all the intimate details of that client's experience, but gives you a sense of what it might look like to recognize and then identify the root cause and then find ways to redirect and reinforce so that ultimately you're not accumulating that emotional debt and allowing that emotional debt to drive decision making in your business, or
avoidance in your business, or procrastination in your business. So that this part of it is something that is part of the systems that you're managing from a mindset perspective. So with that, before we wrap up and talk about how to put this into action for yourself and your business, I want to give you a word of caution. I promise you, I would give you a word of caution. This is not about being positive. I did not record this entire
episode. If you're coming away from this thinking, well, I'd better just be more positive. That is not the point of what I was sharing with you today. And sometimes we simplify it down to that place of, well, I should just be more positive going forward. That's not what we're talking about
here. What we're talking about here is being aware of your emotional state, which there are hundreds of different emotions that you can experience as a human, and having a practice to manage those proactively in the moment and afterward, so that you don't continue to accumulate this emotional debt that then skews the decisions and priorities that you're making in your business. So I really want to reinforce, this isn't about you just being. Having a positive mindset or a positive
attitude. This is about you understanding and getting more in tune with the emotions that you're experiencing as a human that are very natural to experience, and then implementing and strengthening a practice to be aware of them, to understand the root cause, which is the thinking that you have about the situations that you're in, or the services that you offer, or the clients that you work with or your own capabilities, being aware of all of that,
recognizing how it's impacting your emotional states, and then having a process to redirect your mindset to create an emotion that is more sustainable for the long run, like curiosity or even neutrality. So that is what we're talking about here today. It's not about just being more positive, it's about managing that emotional debt as you go, having a practice to manage your emotional debt as you
go, so that it doesn't accumulate over time. And lead you to the place where you feel burned out and ultimately wanting to go back to corporate as a result. So with that, let's wrap up the episode and talk about how to put this into action for you and your business. The first step is I would just take an inventory of what is your predominant emotion on a weekly basis. What is your predominant emotion even on a daily basis? What does that look like? So that you're clear about what it is you're
experiencing and then get to the root cause of it. Ask yourself, why am I experiencing this? Just like the example I gave you with the client, if it feels like a fact, well, I just need recovery time after I work with a client on a certain type of engagement. For example, ask yourself, why do you need that recovery time? Why are you feeling stressed? Why are you feeling burned out? Why are you feeling that things are not sustainable?
It always comes back to the way you're thinking about things, thinking about your client, thinking about your own capabilities, thinking about the way you deliver, thinking about what the client thinks about. You understand that. So then you can start building a plan to redirect that thinking and lighten that emotional mode and also not compound the emotional
debt that you'll ultimately have some form of debt, like I said. But we don't want it to be so heavy of a burden that you're not able to function effectively as a business owner and ultimately to have a sustainable, long term business for yourself. All right, the last thing I'll recommend to you is reach out to see if coaching together would be a good fit. This is something that can be really challenging, challenging to do for yourself because
you are living in your own mind and your own body. And so the ability to have someone to help you, to see where you might be getting in your own way from an emotional perspective, from a mindset perspective, is incredibly valuable. I have my own coach, two of them actually, for this specific reason. So if coaching feels like it's the right next step for you, reach out and schedule a call. You can find my calendar at consult melissa.com and I look forward to seeing you again next week. Take care.
Thanks for joining me this week on the Grow your independent consulting business podcast. If you liked today's episode, I have three quick next steps for you. First click subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to make sure you don't miss future episodes. Next, leave me a review in your podcast app so other independent consultants
can find and benefit too. And finally, to put the ideas from today's episode into action head over to melissalieberman.com for the show notes and more resources to help you grow your consulting practice from your first few projects into a full fledged business. See you next week.