My life can be chaos. I mean full out chaos in this ever-changing, last second craziness, warp speed work of entrepreneurship and business ownership in a company that is blowing all records month over month and year over year. Being a small business owner of Kelly’s Bake Shoppe with my daughter Erinn Weatherbie, we have many challenges. With a staff of 32, and a company with rapid growth over the past 6 years, it is a wild ride (an understatement). Most importantly, for me, is to create the time to de-load my mind and creative ideas or else I lose my balance and disconnect from my ‘self’. My sacrifice is my creativity and my ability to stay in that role of a strong leader and a visionary. I feel my creativity gets banished with the overwhelm and my passion turns into craziness. I know many of you can relate and this is not the place where any of us want to live from.
Space is Good.
Slack is the GOAL.
Infinite possibilities are the DREAM.
If you want to create anything large, lineal, magical, bigger, better or truly different, you need room to ask, “what if?”. The big ‘A-HA’ moments never come from cleaning out your inbox, or back to back to back meetings or everlasting conference calls or being the target of non-stop outside influences. The big creative ideas come in the SPACE. These are big lessons for me and I’m learning how to respond and stop reacting. We react when under pressure (that is never a good thing) and we respond when we have the slack and the openness to expand our mind to all possibilities. It is in this space of slack when good decisions are made.
Meditation is the world I crave but I have a hard time getting there.
The #1 way to create this space is to meditate. This may not always be a readily available option for many of you (me neither!) and in our crazy hustling world, the number one thing people say as an excuse (yes, me included) that they cannot meditate is that they do not have the time, or their life is too loud and too intrusive or that it is impossible to slow their thoughts.
I have just recently discovered a way to gift me an extra hour of space a day! I got a set of Bose QuietComfort noise cancelling headsets from Staples Canada. OMG! I am in love with these headphones! I put them on and instantly, the outside world stopped knocking on my door! I have no idea why I never thought of this before but now that I have these, there is no way I could live without them. Even writing this post, I have them on and it is allowing me to stay razor-focused. I can sit with my mind and quiet the chaos – the creativity starts to again emerge as my mind slows down…I can just be with me and my thoughts. The creativity flows, as well as, the joy when I get centred to what into I love the most: building epic brands that gives back to the world in so many ways. It is so incredibly important to peace out from time to time on a daily basis. It keeps us creative! It keeps us passionate! It keeps us alive and allows us to thrive! Thank you Staples! It is #SmallBusinessMonth in Canada and I am thrilled to be partnering with Staples Canada for this blog post. Staples has always been there for me on my entrepreneurial journey, over the past 8 years, and I’m honoured to be a part of
Small Business Month with them to showcase the tools they sell to equip us with everything we need to excel.
What do you do to create slack (or hopefully even try to meditate) in our busy world of
entrepreneurship?
10 Comments
I’ve been trying to meditate forever. It is so very hard to do. Can you help me with more ideas like what do you listen to? Exactly? I need to know.
My 16 year old son is telling me (like a smart ass) to do this every day to get out of his hair. 🙂
I do think he could be right however. 😉
Steph
Hi Steph! Kids 😉
He’s just asking you to focus on you and allow him some space to breathe and grow. We all do this to our kids! The best thing you could ever do is lead the way (in your family) and adopt some lifestyle changes to enhance your way you are living! Then the rest falls into place and when we are able to show our kids a better way of thriving. Our children deserve better than gaming and smart phones. Let’s be their light they so desperately need. xo
Thank you Kelly. You are always giving to us so much grace and knowledge. Thank you for this incredible helpful tip.
I hope that it will work for me too!
Thanks Nancy! I hope it does clear some energy and make a path available for you. Take it one step at a time. xo
Love this idea Kelly! Thank you for sharing! I’m going online to order right now.
So glad I could help Bryan! XO
So…what is the app you use for meditation? Do you have a favourite? Do you have any other tricks to get this space?
Thank you Gwen! I have a few but my favourite right now is still Insight Timer. There are so many great guided meditations on it.
I hope Kelly Childs can read this. I walked into your bakeshop last week and was enthralled. I had never seen anything like it before. Gluten free AND vegan?? ALL THE ITEMS???? Not just the disgusting pre-wrapped hard somethingorother that resembles a cookie or a bar but tastes like *&^*&%^%. So I bought the cookbook because I’m not from your area and what if I loved what I bought and could never have it again!!!! PLUS I love cookbooks. Anyway, fast forward to my raspberry scone I made this morning. (I shouldn’t tell you I added white chocolate bits in it) I immediately got on amazon and sent my vegan friend a book. LOVE EXUDES FROM EVERY ATOM OF THIS BOOK. My family for once didn’t ask, “is this really food or your gluten free stuff”. I cannot thank you enough. THIS BOOK IS A LIFE CHANGER FOR ME. And when I was so disappointed that you ran out of the lemon poppyseed loaf at the bakery and told me the recipe isn’t in the book, only to find out that evening that it is???? Yahoooooooooo!!!! So thank you for the recipes that are EASY, the ingredient list that is REAL FOOD (and not some crazy mix of weird things that you can only go to a specific website to buy), that the food comes out AS IT LOOKS IN THE PICTURES, and TASTES EVEN BETTER THAN IMAGINED. You have eliminated the need for all those gluten free magazines I’ve been buying and the ensuing disappointment, and the comments from family members who wish for not everything to taste coconutty. You have somehow poured your LOVE into this and I am receiving it now, and IT HAS CHANGED MY LIFE, and HOW COULD I NOT BE FOREVER GRATEFUL. And now I cannot wait to go back and read your blogs because there was nowhere to tell you there what I am feeling right now on your website, but your blogs now intrigue me. And can you PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE notify me when your next book is available as I will likely be driving my Burlington bestie crazy going into the shoppe to see. Signed, your newest superfan who now enjoys her treats IMMENSELY!!!! THANK YOU. Sending you back love and gratitude
Wow! Thank you so much Laurie! This is so lovely of you. I mean VERY VERY lovely of you! You have touched my heart with your kindness. XO