KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Can You Have It All? With Minessa Konecky

Episode Date: July 16, 2024

Welcome to this week's episode of The Enterprising Agent. I have an amazing guest for y'all this week. Here to talk about how to have your cake and eat it too in your business. Please welcome Manessa Conicky. Hey, hey, hi. It's so good to be here, Stephanie. I am so excited. I thank you so much for coming on the podcast. For all of our listeners, we had a chance to chat a couple weeks ago,

Manessa and myself. And when I finished chatting with her, I was like, oh man, we should have saved it all for the podcast. So hopefully we're going to recapture that magic a little bit because we were getting into it. So if that's what we were able to dig into in our little 20-minute conversation, I'm really excited for where this episode is going to go. So I want folks to learn a little bit about you. Talk to me about your history in business in the business world. Oh my gosh. Well, so I've had actually a couple of different types of experiences in the business world. I worked in biotech for a while.

I worked in research. I actually worked as a grants manager for a really, really long time at the Harvard hospitals. And one of the things that I learned there was actually how to manage a lot of small businesses at once. Because what a lot of people don't know is that little research departments are all like their own little businesses. So I learned it, I learned how to run businesses from there. And then I actually jumped into direct sales for a while and realized that even though direct sales was really fun, I really wanted more independence. I wanted more independence and I wanted to have more control over my business.

And so I decided, you know what, I'm going to venture out on my own and I'm going to start a coaching business. Because one of the things that I learned over the course of my various places in terms of business management is that we teach a lot of people, a lot of the tactics in terms of, you know, here, you've got to do email. Here, you've got to do, you know, chatbots and here you've got to Facebook. We teach people a lot about the actual day-to-day doing things in business, but what we really don't talk about a lot is like how to think like a business owner and what some of those mindset, fundamental mindset ideas are. And I was like, you know what, it doesn't matter where I have been, whether I've been in Harvard, whether I've been in direct sales, whether I've been in biotech, small business, boutiques,

it doesn't matter. The problem is always the same. It comes down to your mindset and your approach. So I got really, really excited about running a business on that. I've been doing that for, it feels like forever. now, but I think it's only been about five years. Can you think of the moment or maybe something that happened that gave you that light bulb moment of, man, we teach, like you said, we teach the fundamentals. We teach the how to do it, but we don't teach the why we don't teach that critical

thinking. Was there an experience that you had that created that light bulb moment for yourself? You know, I think it was a lot of repeated experiences because like what happened was as I I found myself repeatedly saying, like, okay, I'm doing this thing and it's not working for me and it's working for this other person and we're doing the exact same things. And like, when you see enough people mimicking behaviors and we're all doing the exact same thing and you see that the results are inconsistent, then that means that it's not the behaviors. There's something else that's causing that success. And so I was like, all right, I need to figure this out because I suddenly realized after having

bashed my, it almost feels like running into a wall like 300 times. And after like the 300th time, I was like, you know what? I was like, if this was an actual wall, I would have probably tried to find another way out. And so I was like, well, maybe I should look at a different direction. And that's when I started to really realize that the approach is way, it's before you even start talking about your tactics, it's your approach. Talk to me a bit about how you used what you learned, again, this aha moment of it's not necessarily the tactics, it's the approach. How are you applying that to your coaching business? Oh, dude, that's actually, that's such a good question because it's really hard when you think about like, when you have the idea, right? Because how many of us have these great ideas and we're like,

oh, this is amazing. But then operationalizing it is like, how do you actually do the thing? So it was actually first, it was really hard because I had to first accept that I had brought a lot of preconceived notions about business with me into adulthood, and I needed to deprogram myself off of those things. So I think the very first thing for me was recognizing what things were, what things I was doing in business that I was doing just because someone told me or just because. And so in my coaching, one of the things that I really push a lot is always ask the question, you know, are you getting the results that you're looking for from the activity that you're doing? And if you're not getting the results, for many of us, we're afraid to look at it.

at that. Like we're afraid to look if, because like it's almost if you look at it face on and you see that you're not getting results, well, then you have to do something about it. And what if you don't know what to do about it? That's even scarier because now you're faced with the possibility that you just may not know what you're doing. And it's, those are very, very scary places to be. So in my coaching, what I've done is I've created a community where I guide, I make these challenges. I share with them when I'm going through a challenge like that where I'm facing something that is a preconceived notion and I sort of like walk them through the path that I go down psychologically to move my way out of it with while also providing tools that will let you sort of stay on the rails right for the

places that I've already been because there are places that I'm going to that my clients have not yet been but and there are places I've already been that they are now finding their way so and those are the places where I usually will have something ready for them but I don't shy away from showing them when I run into that wall myself because they need to see someone going through the process of slamming into a wall, getting bruised, getting upset, and working their way through it. Otherwise, it just looks like I'm like, oh, look, there's a problem. And then, like, I figure out the solution behind closed doors. And then I come out and I'm like, ta-da, this is how you fix it. And nobody gets to actually see the process, which is really the most important part.

Yeah, absolutely. I think those that are, have achieved some level of, in air quote, success or what somebody else determines to be success. I think. it becomes that pay no attention to the man behind the curtain sort of mentality of like we don't know how they got there and they make it look so easy and and the ones that have built those systems or have those processes that they come back to over and over again or just so well organized that nobody sees the chaos it's that like that iceberg theory that you're only seeing the little bit that's above the water and then there's all this stuff underneath the water that no one gets to see we have in our real estate team right now we're in the middle of a monthly like accountability group. And, and you're right, even me sharing when I missed a deadline for myself or when I was struggling with something. And I think that's also a big thing with not only, you know, being accountable when you have a group to be accountable to, but being accountable to yourself of being kind to yourself and going, you know, hey, maybe I need to switch gears or maybe today isn't the right day. So here's what we're going to do tomorrow. So many people strive to be perfect all

And number one, it's boring to be perfect. And number two, it's impossible to be perfect. So showing that imperfection, you know, a little bit of those cracks in the facade, I think are really important to folks who aren't quite there yet to know that the ones who are truly successful and are finding joy in their business aren't perfect. Because if I had to be perfect, I wouldn't be anywhere near as happy as I am right now. Oh, God, the pressure to be perfect. The pressure alone, forget about actually doing the things.

just the pressure that is there is it'll cripple you before you even walk out the door. You know, you said something earlier though. You mentioned that you said being kind to yourself. Like I think that that's actually, and I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this because I think that in order for us to be able to confront whatever it is that our challenges are, our problems, we do need to be able to do it with kindness. But how do you, like, how do you do that? Because I know that it's a tough thing to do, right? So I imagine at some point you were more judgy with yourself. Like how did you migrate from being judgy to being number one, I love it when I get interviewed on my own podcast. I will do that all day long. But, you know, how did I, how did I determine that, you know, or how did I get to this

level of stopping kicking myself for not being where I need to be and being kind to myself? And when I dialed it back and didn't focus on the end result, but focused on the steps along the way and go, I just need to get from A to B right now. I'm not worried about what Z is going to look like. And if I don't quite make it to Z or I've got to take this fork in the road, I can still look back and go, okay, I still did A, B, C, D, EFG and did so in the way that I felt was going to be best for my business or the way that I was coached or whatever that strategy was going to be is celebrating those little successes along the way, I think is how you learn to not focus on the fact that the finish line was different than what you expected it to be or the finish line isn't quite there when you

expected it to be because you've patted yourself on the back for the strides that you made along the way. Dude, there were so many awesome things in there. I loved what you said about the finish line not being where you thought it was going to be or like when you thought it was going to be because I think those are the things we beat ourselves up the most over is the when and the where because I you know I don't know if you like one of the things that I found most interesting actually in listening to your podcast was how we come from different worlds but like you were like my soul sister I'm like listening to talk about I'm like my god these are the same problems we all run into these same issues right you know one of the things that you mentioned was

how the finish lines move they're not where you thought they'd be or when you thought they would be, you know, I love that you talked about the, like, focusing on the steps in between and the milestones, because I think one of the biggest issues that we definitely see in in the industries that I've worked in is that we're so goal-oriented that we're always keeping our eye on the goal. So, like, we're looking way out into the distance while we're doing our day-to-day tasks. And I think what I've had really trouble, I've actually had a lot of trouble articulating this, and I still struggle with it, is this idea that you, there's a time. in a place for looking at that bigger goal in the distance, but once you sort of like sat down and said,

okay, that's where I'm trying to head to. Like I want to run a business, you know, I want to run a business, you know, in five countries or I want, you know, I want to help women who struggle with depression or whatever it is, right? Then you've got to pull back in and you really just need to focus on the day-to-day stuff and not focus on that bigger picture stuff. That's a really tough concept. I think it was a really hard thing for me to understand. And like, it seems so counterintuitive. How do you feel about like clearly you do the same thing but I'm really curious about like how you felt about it as you like were you just like what the like I was yeah I you know I think for me so you know talking about like previous background and and that sort of stuff of you know very much like you I've worked in

different industries I've been in different businesses you know I I went to college to get a degree in English and French and now I'm a real estate agent who can't speak French anymore so you know This all changes. So I've already been through the path doesn't look like what you're going to, what you're going to need it to be. I used to own, I went to culinary school, went through pastry program. And so when I, when I talk to folks about the process and, and I hate even just using that term because it feels so like corporate speak. And we're going to talk about corporate speak and guru culture and that sort of thing here in a moment. But it feels so corporate speak. But when you talk about the process, I almost look at it like a recipe. If all I need to do right now is to cream some

sugar and some butter, that's the only thing that I'm focusing on right now. I'm not worried about how am I going to pipe rosettes at the end of the day on this wedding cake. All I need to focus on is the sugar incorporated into the butter. Great. Now I'm going to add my eggs in. So I think huddly enough cooking and baking is that process of I can't get too far ahead of myself because then I'm going to mess up the thing that I'm doing right now. And I think it's very much the same way in business and especially for new business owners who are building their process or learning the process or figuring out where their skill set and personality fits within this process or this goal that they're trying to set for themselves. And sometimes you've just got to go, what is the

thing in front of me? And let me tackle that and know that if I tackle that, then I've set that foundation for that next thing that needs to happen. So it comes from baking. Do that's so good. That is so good. I love that idea so much because it's, I think, you know, when you start to think about what each of these little tasks mean. So like, if I'm just writing a social media post, right? Then it's just a social media post. Who cares? But if I'm writing a social media post because it is the thing that is going to

take my business from a space where I'm at now to helping all these women. And like suddenly you're talking about like that's a very, there's a lot of weight to put on a little post shoulders. Exactly. Attach a photo. Do four hashtags and send it on its. Yeah. It's like it's a lot.

And I think that like I love the, that I'm going to steal that analogy. I'm just letting you know. Go for it. Absolutely, because you're absolutely right. Like if you're incorporating the color into, you know, the frosting or whatever, you've got to focus on that one step because if you even think two steps ahead and whatever you're doing, you're going to, like, just last night, my husband was making crumble for the apple thing.

And he put in two tablespoons of water with a cup of flour instead of two teaspoons. So instead of creating a crumble, he created a dough. And he hands his view, hey, well, this work? Can I just use this? I'm like, no, this is not the same thing at all. It'll do something, but it won't do what you think it's going to do. Because he wasn't focusing on that particular top thing he was doing in that moment. Being able to, again, just really drill down to focusing on that moment, I think also makes us more efficient.

I did an exercise with one of my training groups, gosh, two weeks ago. Man, I should probably record like a little YouTube video on it on multitasking. And multitasking being a time killer. We all think that we're great at it and none of us are. It's the worst. Oh my God. Mozart is the only composer who wrote multiple works at the same time. There is no other artist composer who he's like, you know, everyone else puts their stuff away before they pick up something new.

None of us are Mozart. I hate to break it to you. What? What are you saying, Stephanie? I am not the Mozart of real estate and no one listening is either as much as we try to pretend that we are. But we did a little exercise, wrote out a very simple sentence, like a 19 letter sentence, and then the numbers one through 19 underneath. So I had everybody do it and took on average, anywhere between maybe 20, 30 seconds for everyone to write out that sentence and then write one through 19 below it. And then I had them

write one of the letters, then one of the numbers, then one of the letters, then one of the numbers. So basically, you know, simulating multitasking. And it went from 20 to 30 seconds to anywhere between 45. I stopped it at 60 and there were still some folks who were still like working on it. So just as a, as a skill set of avoiding those like distractions or thinking of like I've got to do 10 things at once. Well, it ends up taking us 20 times as long to do 10 things at once. And when you give yourself permission to just uniquely focus on that task at hand, one, you learn more from it and two, you get it done in half the time than if you try to think about all the other things and obsess about all the other things.

I have an agent and I'm not going to mention her name, but she's lovely. And she just got her very first listing and we're very excited. And she's just been, she's just been obsessing about it. What do I do when this happens? What do I do if this happens? And I was like, put on your calendar 15 minutes a day for you to obsess. But when that 15 minutes is over, you got to stop it. So that's also kind of, you know, that idea of being kind to yourself that we can't be

perfect. There are times where we're going to be stressed, but even going, this is my time to rage out. This is my time to stress. This is my time to just get in my head and think all of those wild thoughts of what if the sky starts falling. But then when it's done, I can put it away. So even putting away that negativity or putting away the things that sabotage us, I think for me also is a little bit of kindness because that fake it till you make it or like, you know, you've got to wear that smile all the time. I think that's toxic as well. I don't, yeah, no, my God, I do not subscribe to that at all. And actually, so people ask me, I'm very, very efficient. I'm very efficient.

and people ask me, they're like, how are you so efficient? And my answer is, I don't multitask. Like, you can't, if I am multitasking, I am not efficient. It means I'm trying to do something else and I'm sabotaging myself. Like, I am definitely, and I know it, but old habits do die hard. So you're, I, I'm so subscribed to that philosophy. And I think that, like, part of that is the problem is that we were raised. Like, these philosophies that, like, we're talking about, like, these are, it's funny

that you're, we're challenging them here, right? Because these are things that if you were. were to ask me, say, five, six years ago, I would have believed them to be as immutable as the waves and as the current. Like, this is just how it is. And you just don't understand if you don't accept this is how it is. And I think that, like, it's not until you realize that, well, this is not how it is, right? When suddenly you realize, well, whoa, okay, wait a minute. If this isn't how it is, then does that mean I can try anything, which opens up the world, which is incredible? But that, I think, is really where a lot of these changes started in business and in life.

And you were talking about how she gets that time to, you know, and to just to vent. And what I, what I, I did this, I did this training once where I talked about how, you know how you pick up your phone sometimes and you're like fully charged and you pick it up like 20 minutes later and it's almost dead. And you're like, what just happened, right? And you look at your phone and you discover that, oh, there's like these apps. that are this app that's open that's draining your battery. And what happens, what I found is is that that when you, when you have these things that are that you're holding on to, I got to remember to do this, I got to do that, I'm upset about this, I'm worried about that, all these what ifs that many people think are them planning for

I'm being prepared, which that's not actually what you're doing, pacifying, because what you're doing is self-soothing. It makes you feel it's a very self-soothing activity to go down the what-if ritual. and what ends up happening is that every thing, every single item that you keep in your brain that way is, I call it a hornet, but it is effectively what, it's like buzzing by your ear, but it's effectively like taking a kettlebell and attaching it to some of your hair in the back, right? And every time you have one more thing that you're adding on that you're worrying about or thinking about or adding to this stuff that you're doing and you're multitasking,

you're just adding more kettlebells to the back of your hair, which at some point, if you're going to try to walk forward, you're literally lugging all of that with you. So you're going to get tired more often, faster. You're going to think. It's just your entire being goes down a notch as a result of that. And the problem, and you and I talked about this when we were getting to know each other a little bit, is that people don't tend to question these belief systems. And the very belief systems that they're using to hold themselves to be successful

are the things that tend to sabotage us in our businesses, which is, that's tough. Like, I'm glad we have a podcast like yours is to help sort of like, you know, what's the word? Shake that up because the truth is that you can be more efficient. You can be more effective. And you can literally have your cake and eat it with business. Like you can have exactly what you want in business, but you have to give up something

that most people do not want to give up. And that is their belief system. And I think this is a nice little segue because, you know, I was talking to somebody about, you know, the fact that, you know, my joy in real estate is. agent development, agent coaching, agent training, but just naturally, and I think we talked about this a little bit of like having that aversion to what most folks think of as a corporate coach or a corporate trainer. We don't necessarily have to mention names if we don't want to, but there are some very big players, primarily male in the business sphere who make a lot of money telling people

why they are wrong in their approach to business and that the answer is you're just not doing enough. And so I've lately I've been having a lot of this like kind of checking myself, you know, almost like the, you know, am I the drama sort of thing? Am I, you know, feeding into this kind of kind of kind of thing? So I want to just kind of riff a little bit or talk a little bit about, you know, how you try to set yourself apart from what a lot of people perceive corporate coaches or business coaches to be and also your opinion on the landscape of business coaches in in the world today. Oh, dude. You've like opened up my favorite. Pandora's box.

So we're about to get canceled. Okay. I see because like you and I talked about you. We both feel so passionately about this because like, you know, what actually, one of the things that got me started in coaching in the first place was that I started to observe tools of coaching being used as weapons against, especially women. And the way that it, the way that manifests is in, you said earlier, you're not working hard enough.

It's you. You must be doing something wrong. right? And so you might be hearing it from you, like from your own internal voice, or you see, you know, somebody like, you know, one of the big coaches out there who, you know, always live, always posting things saying you got to work harder, stay up late, you know, basically the philosophy that if you don't work all the time, then you're not, this is the philosophy that they subscribe to. It's the philosophy that you, your dedication to your business and the indication of your success is a direct result of how much time you spend on your business. So that means that in order for you to be

successful, you just need to put in more time. So the person who's going to be the most successful is going to be the person who's able to work 24 hours as opposed to say the person who's going to be able to work four or five. Right. So by default, that puts a mother at the bottom of the ladder because the mother is always going to be responsible for taking care of the kids and like in a lot of enable in the house and so many other responsibilities. And so now you have a coach who will say, well, I understand that you have all these things going on. Feed your kids mac and cheese. It doesn't matter.

And like they're asking you to sacrifice the very things that you, like, and when most us start our businesses, we don't start them so that you can feed your kids. And I don't have kids, but I work with a lot of moms. And I start my business to be with my dogs. You know, I love my dogs. Yeah. You have a crazy dog person. Like whatever, right?

Whatever your reason was, it wasn't so that you could work 24 hours a day. Nobody starts a business saying that they want to, want to work 24 hours a day. And I think that this is really unhealthy. because it's creating a belief system that basically puts a very huge portion of the population at a immediate disadvantage because they are just being told you are at a disadvantage because this is how you're starting. And so having watched this happen, and I've worked with thousands of women at this point and brilliant women, brilliant women, skills from all over the place, like, so talented. And the only problems that they actually have,

are that their self-esteem is in the toilet because they've been through the ringer trying to run a business where they are being told that it's always them. And so the way that I set myself apart is I work almost exclusively with people who have chronic illness or some sort of a limiting factor in their life. They're caregivers for people with chronic illness. I have myself have fibromyalgia, IBS chronic migraine. I collect chronic illnesses like they were going on. We've got all the letters on your medical record.

You know, it's like, um, so then I've got my own mental illnesses, anxiety, depression, blah, blah. Like, so there's, on my website, I talk about all of them. But I work with these people and I work specifically also with, because these are the people who are never going to feel like winners if they subscribe to the philosophy that automatically puts them and puts them in a deficit. And no one should start feeling like, imagine if you went to school, right? your first day of school and you walk in and your teacher says, well, you're an idiot. You're going to automatically be probably about four to five months behind everybody else.

So I'm just letting you know that at the outset, right? Have fun. Like, you would never do that to a child. God, my heart broke for me when I said just now when I said that and I'd never even happen to me. I was like, I want to punch that teacher in the face and they don't even exist. I know, right? This is like a fake teacher.

And you're like, God, what's wrong with you? But that's how. I just want to take a minute for your listeners to really fully appreciate that is that that's what you experience. Like that's exactly what you experience when you often go looking for coaches. And I think that's why it's so important what you do. Stephanie went and when I found your podcast, I just, I could not get on your podcast fast enough. Like I loved you so much and everything that you, and the people that you've had on, so

brilliant. Oh my God, so brilliant that these are the kinds of things that will help to change that. Sorry, I totally got on my soapbox because I feel so strong. I love it. It saves me from having to do it. I'm still going to do it, but it saves me for that. So to show a long story short, I find hustle culture to be appalling. And I think that you can have a business and a life.

Like I am currently 44 years old and I'm literally living my dream life. And I've helped a lot of other people live their dream lives. And you don't actually have to do it with me. It really just starts with letting go of the way that you think things are supposed to be or like it should be. Once you let go of that, it's amazing what's possible. And I think, you know, the, you mentioned that, again, we don't necessarily have to name names, but I'm sure people can figure it out.

You know, there's three or four big players. There's some letters at the end of their last name, you know. Exactly. Very tall people, you know, that their business is almost built off of how far can I tear this person down so that they spend more money so I can continue to tear them down. and then it's almost like dangling this like carrot at the end of, you know, I will teach you how to be better, but I've got to like break you before I rebuild you. And that's so appalling. You know, if the product is how broken can we make you? I don't even know how someone would

begin to see that as a benefit. But I, but and not just to call out, you know, again, the big players in this business coaching culture, we see it in diet culture. We see it in, you know, a lot of the toxic systems that we have, especially in this country today, of, you know, can we make people feel so bad about themselves and then promise to be their savior? And when that's somebody's business model, my hope is that people can kind of start to see through that of, okay, what is this person actually selling? Or what did this person, you know, it's very easy to talk about building a million dollar business when you inherited the $3 million wine business from your parents? You know, what, what gets you there, you know, that idea? And like you said, nobody builds a business. If I ask, if I ask a hundred small

business owners or 100 real estate agents, you know, what, I like using the idea of what does a random Tuesday look like to you if you are not stressed about where your next paycheck is going to come from? If you're not stressed about where your next deal is going to come from, what does a Tuesday look like? And no one says, I want to work 19 hours. Nobody says it. It's, I want to get up in the morning, go grab a cup of coffee, go on a walk with my dogs, come back, do some work, maybe enjoy dinner with my family. You know, it's, it's all of these things that are truly important to us as human beings, as, you know, these, these animals that are, want to be surrounded by people and want to be surrounded by serenity. and don't respond well to increases in cortisone levels, just the biology of what it means to be a human.

And we're trying to train ourselves to do what is the antithesis of what it means to be human. And if there's anything that I can do to kind of go, no, I don't want you working 50 hours a week. And I'm never going to tell you, well, the reason why you're not successful is because you didn't do 10 extra hours of the thing that wasn't working for you in the first place. I don't know how that can make sense. The logic is beyond me. So yeah, and yeah. So for me, it's, you know, am I, again, am I just pushing to go do more? And if I'm not, then okay, cool, maybe I'm not feeding into that.

And am I giving tips? Because I, in anticipation of our conversation, this is something I've really just been focusing on a lot lately is like watching some of those, again, business coaching guru, like, their seminars or anything that's on YouTube. And I was like, there are no tips. there's no practical thing that I can apply. There is no, so step one, step two, step three, or here's how you track,

or here's how this is an indicator of forward momentum. It's purely you're wrong, you're not doing enough, you're the reason for your problems. It's blame and then fix it with no tools on how to fix it other than just harder more, grind more, hustle more. I'm like, you're going to grind yourself to dust. if that's your idea of quote-unquote grinding. It's just beyond me.

The amount of physical damage that it does to the body, I don't know if you, like, I hit rock bottom physically before I was able to come back. Did you also hit rock bottom physically before you were able to bounce back from overwork? Or do were you... Oh, there was definitely physical thing. I had my whole left shoulder out of commission

for three and a half months. Oh, my gosh. My husband had that happen to him. Yeah. It was bizarre. Did something happen to it? Because he got this weird, weird condition syndrome that, like, nobody, like, it was random and he just couldn't use his shoulder. Is it okay now? Yeah. I mean, I still have, like, a little bit of, like, oh, like, it'll twinge from time to time. But yeah, like, no damage. I wasn't in an accident. I didn't fall. I'm not sporty. So where was I going to hurt my shoulder? You know, watching RuPaul's Drag Race? Probably not. There's no way.

and all of a sudden I just, I had no, no range of motion beyond my arm straight out. Oh my. I was like, I was doing, Hitler salute was basically. Oh, gosh. I could do. But yeah, like, so like putting on a bra was, oh, that. Talk about having my husband dress me. That's what I do with that.

I just don't wear a bra. Oh, yeah, no, I mean, you get that physical. For me, it was mental. It was like, I had a break down in a dog park. So, you know, it's when you're like, okay, something needs to change. And the thing that needs to change isn't just. doing more of what put me here in the first place. Yeah.

And that's the key because in the end, you just, it, it's like in aliens, it's like one of my favorite scenes in aliens, like the alien's acid blood has eaten through all the wheel and she's trying to drive the car and the metal is just grinding against the road. It's not actually going anywhere. It's like, Ripley, you're just grinding metal. And that's what ends up happening at the end is that you just start grinding metal and the smoke comes and it smells bad. And it's so counterintuitive.

But what I often, what I tell my clients and people who work. work with me is take time off. That's funny because it's like, what should I do? And I'm like, you need to take a week off. And they're like, what? And I'm like, trust me, if you just take a week off when you come back, I will help you get where you need to go. But you, when you're like, you can't, you can't even think properly because your brain is just so wired. It needs a chance to, it's almost, you know what it's like? I'll tell you what it's like. When I was five, and I remember this vividly, like beyond vivid, my mother told me that I was sleepy. And that it was time for me to take a nap.

Okay. I was like, Mom, I'm not tired. I'm not. I'm not tired. I'm not. And fell right to bed. Okay. And why?

Because I was so overtired and so worked up that she knew I just needed a nap. But I was so worked up. I just couldn't comprehend. And then I just passed out. As adults, we have that same thing, right? So when you get totally fixated on your business and like, I got, I got, got, I got, got. And you're like really, like, focused in that area, you can become like a top. And now you think you're making all these really great decisions, but you're really not.

And you think you've got to solve this problem right now. You really don't. Like you have to take that time for yourself first. Breathe. Give your body a chance to heal. And then you can solve all the problems, like when you come back. Absolutely. You know, your business, and I think we as women especially need to hear this, but your business

is what you do. It's not who you are. At the end of the day, you are still you and you have to give time to honor that. and care for that and just be who you are, regardless of the money or the business or the number of clients or the lack thereof. I'm the same way as like, I, you were not working more than five days a week. I just, I mean, I can't force anybody not to, but one of the first things I go is, okay, what are your two days off a week? And they're like, what? Yeah, what are your two days off a week? Well, I mean, I'm going to technically Sunday and maybe Wednesday, but I'll,

probably work a couple hours like no like I want where you don't even open your laptop unless somebody's house is literally on fire what are the two days that you you know you just kind of shut down that your that your doors are locked and it's really important to be able to compartmentalize that and you know for those of us who are in sales you know real estate or or mortgages or insurance where our paycheck is directly connected to that individual transaction it can be scary for a new agent because they're like, well, what if that is the one time that somebody needs me or wants me? Or what if that's the only day my clients can go see a house? And again, it comes back to that, like fixating on the what if, what if, what if, what if. Okay, if the what if happens, okay,

we can deal with it at that time. But if you're setting yourself open to just accept all the what ifs, you're not finding problems for, or finding solutions for the what if problems. You know, hey, I've got this one client who's coming in. The only day that they're going to be in town is Saturday. Cool. Do you have clients every weekend coming in from out of town and Saturday is the day? Cool. Then maybe Saturday isn't the day to take off. So take off on a Tuesday when nobody's going to be coming into town. Yeah. But that doesn't mean you don't add on. You don't just take on more because at some point that bucket is going to completely overflow. I want to talk, you mentioned about, you know, that physical illness and hitting physical rock bottom and realizing that a change need to happen.

Talk to me about how you overcome or mitigate some of those physical challenges that that you're up against because I'm sure you're not alone in that. Oh, dude, I, it's tough. So my, I have fibromyalgia and when I have a flare, it's like bad. And I have my, my, my PMS has gotten so bad. I can't even work anymore, like, during the first few, the few days of my period. So it's like, I tend to be, uh, my, I'm not the healthiest person on the planet. My genes are not super awesome that way. Mom and dad. It's like, it is what it is, right? But so for me, the, it took me a while to first at least get to the point where I was willing to even, um, consider taking care of myself. and I actually had to hit rock bottom for that.

So what I do for me now, it's one is I got to have a routine, which is why moving into this new house was so hard for me because I didn't have a routine for three months and not having a routine, everything just fell like, I don't eat well, I don't sleep well, like it's just everything. And then when you're not doing that, it's your foundation is suffering. So the first is that I need a routine of some. My morning routine is sacrosanct.

It's just, I got to do the meditation and, you know, eat healthy breakfast, that kind of. The second is my diet is really important. So I found that, and this is, new for me. So this is tough because it's new. I am very self-indulgent. I am so self-indulgent. I will eat a pint of Hagen does ice cream and then go back for more. I freaking love it, right? But my body does not like this. So I've had to be really mindful. So I think my mindfulness practice is really helping mindful of what I eat and really making sure that I am eating because it's really

like what a lot of us don't think about is I'll eat later or I'll pass or I'll skip it. And I've seen a lot of my clients do this. And it's only through watching them that I've started to notice like in myself how impactful it is is that like so you skip lunch right because you're like oh I'm so busy and I have no time for lunch then everything that you do for four hours after that is just going to slowly and consistently get worse and worse and worse and your body will slowly start to deteriorate and you are slowly eating away at you right at you and like right you've said earlier Stephanie you are still you when you're not in like you got to take care of yourself first because I guarantee to you that when you're laying on your death by you're not going to be like oh man I wish

I worked some more right like nobody says that but you're not you're not you're not you're not you may have been like, man, I wish I ate more ice cream. No, that's not your own. So, okay. Always, always more ice cream. I wish I had ice cream once more. Put that on my headstone. There you.

But I take so, one, I take care of myself, like, as best as I can in terms of that. The other thing is, is when I feel, like, so if I have, I don't work. I just, I have certain things where I'm just like, this is my switch. It is an automatic pass because I know that I, like, whatever I do, and I actually learned this when I was at the Beth Israel, I used to do grant management. And I would work with through my migraines. And then three months later, you know, and I'd look at all my finest and I look at it. And I'm like, wait a minute.

I was like, what are all these mistakes? And I was very good at my job. But I was making mistakes. And I couldn't understand how this was happening because like these just aren't the kinds of mistakes I would make. And I started to realize it was because I was working when I was having a migraine. So I started doing some experiments. And I realized I was wasting time because I was just going to have to go back and redo all this work again. Right.

Yeah. So I think the key thing for people who suffer from chronic illness, and I tell this to all of my clients, is don't try to push through it. You're not, this is not a race. And you will lose the race if you push through it. I guarantee it. You will lose the race, even if it was a race, is take care of your body first, because without your body, you actually are unable to multitask. You're unable to function. Like, your body is a critical part of doing work.

You can't even single task, let alone multitask. It's like, you really need to focus on this thing here that's keeping you moving around. That's really key is that recognizing that your body is your ward. Your body is your ward and that you have to take care of it the same way you're taking care of the kids, the dogs, the husband, the wife, whoever. Yeah, I find too, you know, we talked about that at least from my age and say, what are your two days off a week? I've encouraged them if you have to set a alarm to remind you, hey, this is my lunchtime. or when you're working on something, you're going to want to take five minutes every hour.

So if it takes you setting an alarm on your phone for 55 minutes and when that goes off, you get up and you stretch and you're not looking at your screen, you're not like you were like literally just, you know, recalibrating a little bit. And it's amazing how much more you can tackle, how much more you can get through and how much clearer your mind is

if you just give it a moment to breathe for half of a second. You know, we talk about like taking care of your body. And I've got to remind folks all the time that your mind is part of your body. It's an organ in your body like your heart or your liver or your kidney or, you know, whatever it may be. It's there. And we've got to take care of it in very much the same way. And I know that, you know, especially here in the U.S. or in Western culture, there's such a stigma on mental health care. We wouldn't think twice as somebody broke their leg.

We wouldn't go, you know, just get outside. read a good book, you know, you'll be fine. It's like, no, go to a doctor, get a cast, get it taken care of, or someone's, you know, bleeding from a gash in their hand, go get some stitches. It's okay, and it's okay to go, hey, I need a little bit of medical care for my brain. It's, it, I think the more that we get away from that stigma, a couple things happen. One, we're able to recognize when, you know, we need to pivot or change the approach. It makes us less, less susceptible to those folks who feed off of breaking us down because if we're already breaking ourselves down, how much more open are we to those who are echoing what we're already doing to ourselves?

So, you know, if we can go, nope, my mental well, being is very important. The moment goes, well, the problem is you. And you can go like, no, it's not because I'm getting right up here. And I think it's, we miss out a lot on just taking care of that brain space because just as importantly as our body, if I'm a functioning head, I can probably still make phone calls if I need to, but I need that, no matter what, I need that. brain to work at peak efficiency and be excited to do work that next day or that next week or, you know, whatever the case.

I need to be able to be ready to go to tackle that next task versus coming in sluggish because it's overworked and under cared for. Oh, dude, therapy? I love therapy. I was actually just, I had therapy at 8 o'clock this morning because I didn't want to miss this week. I was telling my therapist because we were talking about how I think. that business owners should all have therapists. I think it should be a requirement, like,

have a coach and have a therapist. Because it's not just about, like, a lot of people I think think therapy is for people who are broken. I'm like, no, therapy is for people who are fixed. Like, I'm fixed, fixed. I don't think broken or fixed is a thing, but like, let's just go with it, right? Yeah. So I'm fixed because I'm in therapy. And like, in therapy, I found the therapists are really great business coaches because they can help me understand myself better so I can perform better and just generally I cannot you're like on my my other soapbox here is there I've like therapy therapy therapy all the time it's so critical I wanted to jump in and say one thing though you asked me earlier for a tip and I didn't I have a more concrete tip so I know we were probably going to get to

this at some point anyway so I'm just going to dump it out there now so the way that I approach in terms for my clients is a very specific way in terms of how you live a hustle free life so that you don't have to work all the time so that if you have a chronic illness or you have our time time limited or you and you do need to take care of yourself. What can you do? So the way that I tend to approach it is I don't believe in these big, I mean they exist obviously like time blocking and these big life changes to be able to get your life under control because that shocks your body and you can only do it for about two weeks before you drift back into whatever you were in before just because it's not your body is shocked. It's scared. It's not for it. So the way that I tend to approach

change is very, very small increments and get slide in under your cortisol. all radar so that your primal brain doesn't get activated to try to protect you. So it seems like this is just something normal. It's natural. Pay no attention. It's fine. It's fine. Don't look, right? And so I have a free handout, a free tool if you go to Hustleproof Your Life.com that will give you four specific things that you can do. And each of them are little changes in approach. So none of them are like these big, go make a change to your life. Each one is like one is about how you approach your notifications on your phone. The other is how you approach your emails, how you manage your emails in general, how you deal with your Facebook groups and your social media, like how does that

act in your life? And then lastly, the boundaries that you set in your life. And that one actually has some no scripts in with it because boundaries are really critical towards protecting yourself and having a successful business. One of the things that I found, and we could probably do a whole podcast just on this, is that a lot of the times that we find ourselves overworking, is because we let people during the day interfere with our time boundaries. So I'm sitting here and I'm working and then you're like, hey, do you have a minute? And I'm like, sure. Now you've let you break that boundary.

Now I'm with you for 20 minutes. My day just got 20 minutes long. Well, actually, it's probably got about an hour longer because it's going to take me 20 minutes just to get back into whatever activity was I was just doing. So now I've lost an hour in my day. So it's about learning how to set healthy boundaries so that you can start to get some of the days time back from your day without making these really big changes and what happens then is just with that little bit of freedom that you get from making these little changes it feels you feel

freer and more empowered than to make bigger changes and bigger changes and so I always like to start with like the tiniest little sliver of change that you can to kind of get that lever in and then you could start prying prying up the boards of that you're trying to get to if you could go back in time and give new business owner you give your new business owner self one piece of advice what would it be oh geez oh my god you know this is going to sound ridiculous but i think i would give new business owner me the same advice that i would probably give young me is just keep putting one foot in front of the other don't don't worry just keep putting one foot in front of the other and you will get there like i think that the biggest, the worst thing I've done to myself, I think, in my life is worry so much.

Because like, I'm here. Here I am. Everything that I, like, the things that I worried about that came to pass have come to pass and everything's fine. The things that I didn't worry about have come to, did not come to pass. And some did. I'm still fine. I mean, we're here.

So I think that I would really just be like, it'll be okay. Don't. And so I try to tell myself that now. I try to tell myself that now because if I could tell it to myself then, I can tell to myself now. So it really is, it's going to be okay. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.

Fantastic. I think that's beautiful. Well, where can people find you, Vanessa? They can find me on social media. So you can find me on Facebook at manessa.com. So that will take you straight to my Facebook page. And then you'll be able to find everything you need for me there, my hustle proof stuff. You can message me there, whatever you'd like.

Manessa.com. M-I-N-E-S-S-A.com. Perfect. And we'll put all of that down in the show notes. Manessa Connicki, thank you so much for joining us on The Enterprising Agent. Thank you so much for having me. I am so excited. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of The Enterprising Agent.

You can follow us on Facebook and Instagram at The Enterprising Agent. Visit our YouTube channel at YouTube.com backslash the enterprising agent. Want to get a hold of me? Email me at Enterprisingagent at gmail.com. And don't forget to visit our website. at the enterprisingagent.com, where you can find a bunch of free realtor resources to help build your business, information on how to receive coaching and work with us, and a whole lot more. For the Enterprising Agent, this is Stephanie Stone Robb.

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