Entrepreneurship at Your Own Pace: Navigating Business and Chronic Illness with Sarah Berthon

She realized that there was a need for others to learn the same techniques , and so Excel Against the Odds was born . She offers one-to-one mentoring workshops also three Facebook group entrepreneurs against the odds . She shares her techniques and strategies with anyone who runs a business and wants to look after their well-being .

She is also a fellow podcaster with Excel Against the Odds , sharing tips , advice and inspirational stories about running a business while looking after your health . Working with organizations to advise them on better supporting employees with chronic illnesses is her next project . Excel Against the Odds was chosen to be part of the Small Biz 100 in 2021 .

Sarah , welcome to the Saint-Egaroo podcast .

I was just like no , we're going with a 2023 vibe of just like no , we're going to be chill about this . Now . That's good , but you know , do you know what I mean ? Like is that kind of like ? It's kind of like too good to be true , or something like you know .

Like the elevator pitch , the pivotal crossroads , they're always starting with you , Absolutely .

Eventually I became aware that it wasn't normal . I had to ask people speaking to friends and saying do you find that your legs and arms ache at all the time , as if you've been running a marathon ? And they're like , no , they don't . Oh , okay , maybe there is something that's quite right with me .

And after that I probably had a good eight , 10 years of visiting doctors trying to work out what was going wrong . I eventually got diagnosed with ME , which is known as chronic Tegh syndrome , and as a result of that , I lost my career .

I could no longer work the hours that were expected , I couldn't travel and I spent the next three months in bed , not being able to really do much at all . I had a family , eventually got back to my feet , to a part-time job , but I always had this urge to do something more and I started doing my own business . I set up a business making skincare .

I made skincare kits bath bomb and lip balm kits for children so they could make their own skincare using natural , vegan ingredients or eco-friendly , and started running parties . But I was running a business as I would have worked in my old life and I went in full throttle .

And then my pivotal moment came the first Christmas after I launched and I was getting ready for Christmas fair and putting all my efforts into it . I already had one frozen shoulder and as a result of it , of all the repetitive movement and pushing myself too hard , I ended up with a second painful , really , really painful shoulder .

The point I couldn't even get myself dressed . I had to go to the hospital with my pyjamas to get it checked out because I thought I dislocated my shoulder .

I still pushed myself through the Christmas fair the next day but , completely in pain , lost my medication and I promised myself that I would not do that again , and so I had to sort of reassess how I was running my business and run it in a way that was chronic illness friendly .

I took a look to see if anything was out there , anybody who could support me in my journey , and I couldn't find anybody . So I set about sorting it out myself and I set up a group for people with chronic illnesses who run their own business the entrepreneurs against the odds Facebook group .

And just having those people in my base just meant that I wasn't alone anymore . People understood what I was going through and I understood what they were going through . So it was like a mutually supportive group and I learned ways to run my business in a way that was chronic illness friendly .

So things around how to find the best strategy , how to prioritise my work , how to get as much done in a short amount of time as possible because when you have a chronic illness you're quite limited in your time and from that I started running workshop and doing mentoring , and I also am now supporting organisations who want to better support their employees with

chronic illness as well , because that was something that I found was missing when I first was diagnosed with a chronic illness . One step I messed along the way is the fact that actually I have been since been diagnosed with other conditions .

I'm not personally not convinced I had chronic fatigue syndrome , because I've since been diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and POTS syndrome as well . So that might it might be that I do have ME as well , but who knows ? So yeah , I've , since .

It took about 16 years , I think , from first symptoms to getting diagnosed with POTS and and Ehlers-Danlos , so it's been a long journey .

Then the metroses , diagnosis , and just kind of like an idea of like , oh , actually , no , yeah , thank you for all the times you told me to do yoga or eat more healthy . Thank you very much . So , and kind of like , yeah , do and doing something with it and I'd let you know like , like , actually like , okay , this is like this chronic illness is it ?

I don't know it's , it's my weakness and it's also my strength kind of like really turning it around and be like , hey , actually , what can I do with it ? Like , I don't just want to like like wigg by to life , but how can I like , what can I do with it ?

And I'm really , yeah , I'm really excited to go into like how , maybe first , how we , how we can take better care of ourselves as entrepreneurs with chronic illnesses .

And also , really , I'm really curious on you said one of the things is really we're short on time or we just don't have as much hours that we feel like we're producing our best outcome , but at the same time , we there's like this uncertainty . Right , you get up in the morning and you're like it's not a good day today . So how you work with that ?

Where you like , where you don't know Can you , can you perform what you want to perform the next day , or not , like how ? How do you work with that uncertainty level ? I'm really curious about all of those like strategies you got .

And then we can also maybe briefly talk about how businesses or how we as , let's say , entrepreneurs , when we hire people with chronic illnesses , like copywriters or other service providers , how can we make sure they we provide a safe environment ?

I feel that's also very important because , I don't know , I get the impression that a lot of entrepreneur , like a lot of people with chronic illness , have chosen that path because the corporate route is just not sustainable at all in the current climate . So I'm really curious about that .

So how did you , kind of like start to take better care of yourself in regards to your business ?

So most people , when they're starting a business , will put their business first and then they'll say I don't have time to look after myself , I don't have time to do the things that bring me joy . And I think it's really important to switch that round and really start putting yourself first .

Write a list of all the things that you want to do for your health and all the things that bring you joy , and then make sure that you're picking and choosing and putting those into your diary before you do anything else with your business .

So if you have non negotiables exercise , getting out in nature , getting that rest , maybe having an afternoon nap put that in your diary first and then plan everything else in your business around that .

I think if you can do things that bring you joy , then you're going to increase your energy levels , and energy is something that's always a problem when you have an energy limiting issue , such as the chronic illness . So if you can find ways to raise your energy .

If you can find ways to make yourself smile in the morning , treat your cup to the outside or have a chat with the best friends , that can raise your energy levels and that can then really help . So it's about putting yourself first and not feeling guilty . For that .

I think so many of us particularly women , I think- raising a good point about putting ourselves first , and yet everybody else around us will benefit if we do that as well . So our families , our children , our friends will benefit if we start prioritising our own wellbeing . We can then be there for them a lot more as well .

And , as I said , our business is going to really flourish if we look after ourselves . So it's remembering those key points about what does make a difference to our health , and I really do think it's important to start listening to your body as well .

So if you're having niggles or if there's things that you need , so if there's a bit of food that you feel that you really need to eat , then listen to your body and what it's trying to tell you .

I know that if I'm sitting at a screen too long , I might start getting pain in my eyes or my shoulders might start aching , and I know that that is a message from my body to me that if I don't listen and react to it , then I'm going to really suffer for it later .

So again , I know that sometimes it's very hard to step away from your death when you're working on something , but if your body is telling you that's what you need to do , then you do kind of need to take heed of that , and that will mean that later in the day or the next day you'll actually be able to do a lot more than if you try and persevere and

then end up with a migraine or in severe pain . So it's really hard and it's all about acceptance . It's accepting that you do have limitations but you can . If you do prioritise your wellbeing and listen to your body , you can adapt and you can still get a lot done as well .

I find that if I have a day when I'm sitting in front of my computer for eight hours solid , I can procrastinate quite easily and I can get distracted and end up not particularly achieving loads .

And there are days when I might be having just an hour or 20 minutes or two hours and suddenly , because that's focus time , I can actually get a lot more done than if I was sitting in front of my computer for eight hours .

And I do recommend that if somebody is going to sit down just for a small amount of time , knowing exactly what they're going to work on , before you sit down , have a little goal in your mind . What do I want to achieve in this ?

But if you actually , before you sit down , write that on your post-it , put it on your computer , then you're going to get a lot more done as well . So I think that obviously we have less time , as if you have a chronic illness and because you do have to take more care of your health and you might not have enough energy to work 10 miles of hours .

But I do think you can achieve so much in a short amount of time if you're focused and have an idea of what you want to work on .

What can I ask for help ? What are the tasks that need to get done or should get done ? But it's not crucial that I do them and then either find like get help , like hire someone , or realize , okay , this is just not getting done today and being cool with that too , right , like , if it's not a crucial queen bee task , it can wait .

And there's also the tasks that we do set ourselves . It's only obviously we've got client tasks , which are different , but a lot of the tasks that we set ourselves are it's ourselves putting pressure and giving ourselves a deadline , it's nobody else . So if they do slip a few days , it's not the end of the world .

And again , it's accepting that it's not a failure if you don't complete your to-do list . It's being accepting that it doesn't matter If you set yourself a launch in a month time and it takes a month and a half , it doesn't matter . That was your deadline and it can move . So have that flexibility .

And I think your question earlier around , when you wake up and you don't have the energy to do something , it's understanding that and knowing that you have to have some flexibility in your diary and know that certain days you can't do certain tasks . So I know that if I'm coming down with a migraine I certainly can't be doing anything .

That's gonna require a lot of focus . But that's a good day for me to do some more relaxing ideas and after I get my best ideas when I'm actually relaxing and letting my mind think or I might have some jobs that I can just do by just sort of more menial jobs that I can get done when my headache's not too bad .

So it's sort of having a flexible approach and knowing what sort of energy you've got and what's how much that energy , and then making sure you've got plenty of white space in your diary where , if something doesn't fit you've got .

I know all Friday afternoon you've got nothing planned in I can do some catch up tasks that need to get done so you're not going to beat yourself up or not completing any work .

I mean that's a corporate . Yeah , like , I don't know , that's not gonna happen . And also , yeah , of what you said right , like maybe if you're planning something like a launch of a new service or a new product and you divide it into all the little endless tasks that you want to do , maybe you also color code them by energy and level involvement .

Like I mean , that is obviously gonna depend . It's different for everyone , but for me I know , okay , like actually showing up for , like , an Instagram live , that's high energy , that I really need to be well , do that .

But doing things like the graphic design of things or the Pinterest templates , instagram templates , all those sorts of things , I can do that when I'm low energy because that's I've been doing graphic design for over I don't know 20 years . Like that's just easy .

So you really kind of like , go through the tasks and color code them Might be a good hack as well . To know , okay , today is like I don't know , an energy code blue kind of day and pick something of that list . So you're still moving towards where you want to go , but knowing , okay , I don't know , green and yellow are not gonna happen today .

So , I think , trying to understand your energy levels and maybe track them and then , as you say , apply that to your to-do list using different colors , that's a brilliant way of approaching your reach .

Oh yeah , yeah , because that's such a great introvert task , because I don't know , I didn't go through all like all tags of my images and keywords of blog posts and all those sorts of things where I just like , look , I don't have to , I just have to deal with birds today . No people .

That's that If you accept that this is your life at the moment obviously things change , you can get better , you can get worse , you just don't know but if you can accept that that is how you're feeling , how you have to work at the moments , then I think it's easier to then have that knowledge about yourself .

You don't know , no one knows , right , you could perfectly well and the next day , something you never know and like what is helping me as well is kind of like the also , kind of like it is what it is right , like to be like . You know , this is just the current situation and regardless , I am well , all is well and we're just feeling that .

And through time over time I came to realize that it was actually temporary slots of time , that I'd have these relapses and then I'd slowly recover and another point that I'd have another relapse . And now I know that if I do have a few bad days , it's not forever . It doesn't mean that my illness is getting worse .

It just means that for a small amount of time I'm going to be feeling worse and I can cope with that . And I think knowing that I can cope with that and it isn't the end and that things can get better has really made a huge difference in me accepting my illness and being able to run a business .

But if you have a client who is new at this and who hasn't really strengthened that experience , that muscle , what are you telling them ?

Knowing that every situation is temporary and I think in general in life , even if you haven't got a chronic illness , life goes through so many different phases and everyone has difficult moments . And it is temporary . We can , there's always a way out , even really really hard situations . You can't , it's never , never ends . There are ways out of things in general .

So it's knowing that and just repeating as an affirmation this will pass , this will pass it can really help to boost that knowing that it's not permanent .

Like you cannot control what is happening , like how your body reacts to certain things , but ultimately you can decide okay , do I wanna wallow in this or do I flip it and be like you know it's actually , it's okay , I'll be okay , I'll see . This is just a scenario that's happening To let my body know I have to take better care of myself in the future .

I don't want to call them hacks , but what are other ways you do yourself or you recommend your clients to kind of like have really , yeah , to work your successful business on really their own terms and really , yeah , almost kind of like this is the best business life and I love it .

What are kind of like the steps that really the simple steps we have thought about it implement ?

So thinking about ways of changing it . So one example of that is I said earlier that when I started my first business , I was running birthday parties and workshops and obviously that is a huge strain on my energy .

So my plan and what I'm doing now is franchising that part of the business so that other people can run those business , like those parties , on my behalf and I can still grow the business and be proud of what I've achieved , but I don't actually have to do that myself .

So either thinking about if you can employ people or change the model completely , do more once

. Many approach franchising just sort of thinking about how best can my business suit my health , and looking at it that way can really make a big difference .

But even if you have no intentions , but to kind of like you know what is part of that , it's part of like it's documenting your process , it's documenting your workflow and documenting your system .

So even when you're not franchising , but when you then desire decide , oh , I need help , and you bring in , like , let's say , a VA or an OVM , you already have like so much information collected on how you run your business that it just be like there you go . Let me know if you have any questions .

So I don't actually have to be involved in that ? And although there are often in the processes that we were running without any thought of them , there are lots of energy drain , if you sit back and think about that , what my process is , you can .

You can get rid of those energy drains and make them a lot more efficient , which is particularly important when you've got chronic illness .

So the earlier you start documenting all of that and do a yearly like review or audit of all those things , I'd say the better , because you're realizing that , Okay , where are my energy drainers ? Very much so .

So imagine that you have , you are suddenly growing and and you need to adapt , because actually once you get to that point where you are growing and you've got these clients , it's very hard to then take that step back .

Yeah , yeah , absolutely , I mean looking back , I do not regret bringing on an accountant very early on and like as much as possible , super early on , yeah , and everything like just no , not dealing , not sending out the email personally .

So I often talk to my clients about setting things up that your future self will thank you for , and it's thinking about yourself in the future . What are you going to say today ? Thank you for doing that . It's made my life so much easier .

It's also also just going to have you'll have more things to take care of once your business grows and then you're sitting down at the beginning to properly and then let it grow with you , instead of oh okay , I now have like all these gazillion things they're all mixed and match to pick and mix and like , oh , yeah , that's always I don't know , same thing work

kind of like no , not dealing with that , let's , let's , let's . There's no instant gratification doing that , let's just not do that . I feel that's really something that's really one of our strengths .

Maybe with entrepreneurs or people in with chronic illness in general , we're really learning to become really good at doing it and I think to not go for like the instant win toward a quick win , but for like the long term , because we know the quick win might feel good but it's more important that we focus on the long run .

Are you going to work evenings and take the day off , if that's when you feel better at working , and so really take that time to work out what you want your business to look like , because , again , that will affect your business model as well , knowing what days you're working , how many hours you want to work and then , very early on , making sure that your

customers are aware of that as well . You can set up automatic responses to emails which state the hours that you're working and you could say oh , I plan to get back to you within X number of hours or X number of days , and having that sort of communication early on can make people adapt to that very easily .

So a lot of people complain that people expect , instance , responses nowadays because of the invention of mobile phones with emails and things like that . But I found that if you tell people and set their expectations , they don't expect you to respond immediately .

They know that these are the hours that you work , the days that you work , and that you will respond as soon as you get back to the office . And setting that expectation early on can make a big difference . But you have to do it for yourself as well .

You have to say if you're telling customers that I'm only responding during these hours and they send something quite inconsequential out of hours , then don't respond to that immediately , because then you're setting their expectations that you will respond straight away . So it's being quite strict with yourself to a certain extent and your client .

So next time the client will expect you to respond anyway , right , immediately , although you maybe said something else , or and the other expectation when that is that ? I have also found that to be so , so , crucial . Like my clients , for example , they know I'm not going to respond on Mondays . Mondays is my day with my kid .

I'm not going to , I'm not available on Mondays . They also like , they also know I've got to reply within certain time frame and , honestly , if they have a problem with that , then it's my I don't know , I'd say it's .

I'm also partly to blame because something in my lead to client funnel is not working properly because there are not my right fit client Right , because I at one point I was maybe like I don't know , thinking I know it would be , it would be cool to work with this client .

They're like , oh , the money would be cool , it would be nice to have the money , or whatever , and kind of I go against my God of like this is not our ideal client . And then , I don't know there's usually a boundary issue like approaching on the horizon my experience .

Yeah , that is so crucial and you can do little things , and I also found it that you really had to talk about it , make it really clear . Never had it . I never had a concern , I never had never had that race as an issue or anything , just like , yeah , ok , yeah , it's on holidays , china's not available Mondays , whatever . Yeah .

Like I mean , if it's , if it's life or death , then yeah , then like call someone who's who can actually deal with it .

Most likely will not be your service provider , so I'm so we're like , we're curious , so we have , we've talked about like the foundations and the things we can do , and that it is a lot to do so with mindset and how you approach boundaries . What is kind of like your ?

I mean , we always , I don't know , I've never met a service provider who has , like how , has no issue with boundaries , especially when it kind of like comes to the over delivering bit where you're like , oh , yeah , sure I can look at that or , yeah , sure we can do another like video call or whatever . How are you handling that ?

So I think , as long as you aren't pushing yourself too hard and it is leading you towards your goals , I think that the difficulty is if it's taking you away from your goals and you're saying yes to something that's not actually part of your plan .

I think that's really important to avoid that when you have a chronic illness and I think often we get distracted by shiny objects and different offers and things like that and it's really important , particularly when you have a chronic illness , that to know where you're heading and make sure that everything you're saying yes to is taking you in that direction .

And then you're like , okay , if I like no , if it's just interrupting , disrupting your peace , your peace of mind , no , not worth it . No , not worth it . And I had that with a client of mine once where she was like , yeah , but I want to do it , I need the money .

I'm like , yeah , okay , cool , if you say you want to have the money , you need the money , then work that project , just make sure you have firm boundaries . And you're like protecting yourself through that project . And what happened ? The project went fine , she was firming her boundaries , but what happened ?

That like not so great client was really happy with her work . So he referred her to all his peers who were also not all that great clients . Like overall she was like he keeps on referring me clients and I know this is like a good , bad problem to have , but they're not the people I enjoy working with .

It's really exhausting and I always have to be like on guard with my boundaries , but it keeps like I cannot tell them to no , to say to no , don't bring me . So that can also happen . Right , like the people get and it takes you from completely different directions .

Yeah , and then you're like wait , no , I did not want to go into this industry , I did not want to work with this type of client . How the hell did we get here ? So maybe that's let's switch quickly to before , to kind of like end our conversation .

If we there's a chance that you're listening to us and you're not suffering from mechanical illness but you want maybe you're considered working with someone who is this close that they have a chronic illness . What can we do as entrepreneurs to work with freelancers or hire part-time team members ?

What can we do to establish a good work environment or service providers on a business ?

But it's good to have flexibility if you're working with a chronic illness , because there are days when , as you said earlier , that you just get up and you can't really do much because the pain is too much or the brain fog is too heavy or the exhaustion is too bad . So having flexibility and setting longer lead times is a good way .

So if you are asking somebody to do a peaceful work , a work for you , just to understand that maybe they might have longer lead times to deliver it and not put pressure on them to deliver it sooner than what they've offered .

So understanding that if they've given you a deadline , that there's a reason for that and you're trying to bring that forward isn't going to help anybody because they might not be able to do such a good piece of work if you're trying to put pressure on them to deliver it quicker than they want to .

So having that flexibility and understanding and I think , just having those conversations asking whether there's anything that could be useful . I was talking to somebody yesterday who's going to be going into a hospital but he still wants to be able to work while he's in hospital .

So he's now talking to his clients about the fact that he wants to know upfront what work is needing to be delivered so that he can plan for that before he goes into hospital and make sure that he can still deliver it while he's in hospital .

So he's asking for the work up front and then making them aware that there might be some changes depending on how long his stay is going to be and how well the operation goes . But he's been quite upfront about it and his clients are responding very positively to that .

So if you do have somebody approaching you in that way just to have an open mind and understand that this is that they do produce good work and that you can be flexible and work around their requirements- yeah , and also maybe yeah , think about your timeline , right , because there's a high chance your timelines are arbitrary set as well and you're putting yourself

under unnecessary stress anyway .

And to really , yeah , like , be transparent , we open , don't shy away from the conversation , just be curious and see , like I don't know .

Maybe also let's say if you're hiring , looking for different service providers , and actually say , okay , I'm gonna give someone a chance , and just say I go , knowing that , especially now what we said before , the current corporate climate is not in most companies . It's not very much in favor of what we're trying to get on this .

So for some of them , their livelihood totally depends on their self , on their self and their employment and their entrepreneurship , and really say , okay , I'm gonna , I'm gonna give this person a try . They seem their knowledge seems impeccable , they seem really cool to talk to , let's go .

So we have to learn how to adapt very quickly to changing situations and how to make the best out of the situation as well , and those are brilliant skills to bring into a business , and determination and resilience and all those sorts of things are absolutely brilliant for anybody else's business as well .

So they might have the knowledge , but they've also developed these additional skills as well .

So looking at things like your mental health , your physical health , your productivity and your planning so a lot of things that we discussed today , but we've delved into it a bit more detail , so it's definitely worth a watch .

What book are you currently reading , sarah ?

So I'm still quite early on into that , but I'm really fascinated about how obviously I have an energy limiting illness . But there are ways that , even if I haven't got physical energy , I can increase my mental energy and I think when you've got a business , that is brilliant .