The email that helps you start a business by keeping things simple.

This week:

Update: I took an unintentional hiatus from writing this email for three weeks and I have been wracked with guilt! Self-imposed of course! But I’m so happy to be back and on my birthday no less!

23 weeks into writing this email and, like everything in business and in life, sometimes you just need a wee break and a little reset to take the next step forward. September always feels like the another take at New Year for me and I had visions of a big new challenge on socials in a similar vein to January but if I’m honest it just all got a bit too much. This is my first year of school-age children with all the admin that comes with a new school year. Adding that on top of needing to move out of our flat for the windows to be replaced and the intensity of work that comes with the closing stages of the biggest investment round of my career so far… it’s been a lot. Something had to give and this was it.

I love writing this email and I want it to be good! I want to hit send and reflect on it knowing that I added value and it comes from a place of thought and care. That takes me time, and it’s not just something I whip up each week and hit send. After an emergency offload of all my guilt to my coach, he gave me permission to stop (which I needed) and reminded me of something important - reduce the scope, stick to the schedule. I realised that I had over extended my scope of what was physically possible for me to achieve with everything else going on and despite the guilt of not staying consistent immediately showing up, it was actually the best thing that could have happened.

By stopping completely, recalibrating and reducing the scope, I stopped stressing myself out over my self-imposed deadlines and made space for new ideas, new content and new inspiration to show up instead. Which is a big step for a hyper-fixating, deadline, schedule/routine loving Virgo like me!

Words to Live by: I trust the next chapter because I know the author.

Good to know: Ad - This week I shared that Simply Business (the UK’s largest insurers of small businesses) have opened up applications for their 2024 Business Boost Competition. This is the chance for one small business owner or side hustler who knows that their idea is the best, the chance to win £25,000. This is grant funding, there are no catches and you never need to repay the money. The application is super quick and easy so it’s a no-brainer to enter! You can apply here >

{I worked in a paid capacity with Simply Business on TikTok however sharing on this email is not part of that partnership scope and I’m not obligated to share this with you here - I genuinely think this is an excellent opportunity and I’m delighted to be able to help spread the word!}

I’m changing my entire life…

I know I just said I have had a lot on… and I have… but one of my goals for the last half of the year has been to up my social content creation game. So I’ve done something I said I would never be able to do - vlog. I realised that I have mainly just been making excuses for myself like, “your life is too busy it will be impossible to keep up with so why bother starting” and, “you aren’t a creative or aesthetic person so why bother trying”… really those were excuses not to do something so far out of my comfort zone and push for growth in my community but mainly my content creation skills.

So last week I started a new content series - changing my life by setting two goals:

1. Make £150,000 in 4 months

2. Get my strength back (which I potentially never had in the first place!) after having my second baby. Walking 12,500 steps a day, working out 4 x a week and eventually running 10k on New Year’s Day without throwing up!

If you’ve not seen the series yet you can catch up here >

What’s Working - Building a Second Brain

Can we talk about the life-changing magic of having a second brain?! I’ve had an intentional second brain for years but in the last 6 months I feel like I have finally found the best way to capture and process all of the information I consume and I think you’re going to want to replicate it!

I’ve recommended reading Building A Second Brain by Tiago Forte before and whilst the principles absolutely apply, I’ve found what I think is a better way of making having and more importantly actually using a second brain less overwhelming.

If you’re like what the heck are you talking about Helena, then let me quickly break it down.

Having a second brain is all about how you capture, process, remember and connect dots between content you consume. Anything can go into your second brain, from a snippet of inspiration from a podcast, to a story someone told you or even important insight from research papers. The idea is that once the key takeaways and what this means to you is processed into your second brain, you have a usable and reference-able database of all your aha moments.

Most people already have a second brain in the form of their phone notes, note books or saved posts on social media. But the problem with this process of capturing information is that you rarely, if ever, do anything with it.

Last week I launched the updated version of my Ultimate Business Planner with a new second brain template and three brand new business planner tutorials inside.

One of those tutorials I’m sharing with you here to show you exactly how I set up my second brain.

Inside the Keep It Simple Club

Here’s what happened inside the Keep It Simple Club this week:

• We talked about finding motivation, email funnels, customer segmentation and how to decide whether or not to pursue a new idea in our Monday night live session

• Two members took the hot seat for a deep dive on validating a new idea and launch sales

• And in our office hours Q&A we looked at the psychology of why people buy (and why they might not be buying from you) and how to apply the principles of the psychology of sales to your business and marketing as well as making an action plan for what to do when you feel overwhelmed and like you have no time

If you aren’t inside the K.I.S Club yet, doors will reopen again in a few weeks and you can join the waitlist here >>

Have a great week ahead & remember to keep it simple.

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