How have you grown since this covid-19 quarantine or lockdown? I saw so many friends sharing their cooking and finished dishes; some went full force into baking while others discovered newer recipes.
Initially, I was all gung-ho but then I realized that I’d rather spend my time elsewhere! I think I worked more during the lockdown and I have never been more productive business-wise!
So here’s a secret: I prefer working, strategising, thinking of what delicious projects I want to create rather than working up a sweat in the kitchen. It is also not a very good ROI for me as there’s only me and Nic. There’s so much of cake and muffins I can eat in a day. Hence, I’d rather support some local business and buy cakes from them!
I also conquered some of my fears – I went on FB Live so many times (the last I counted, I was on 9 FB Live sessions, 1 webinar of my own and 3 closed-door Zoom meetings where I had to present, host or moderate).
I never thought I’d be saying that I actually enjoyed doing the FB Live sessions. I enjoyed talking to my guests – many of whom are clients and friends. (And the results have been incredible for some of them – Dr Somas immediately got swamped with appointments. But this was my intention anyway – to help our clients get some spotlight during this quiet time.)
When I first conceived of the idea, I pitched Vimi and immediately she said yes. We both can talk for hours so it was no surprise that our first FB Live garnered a bit of attention and eyeballs.
If you want to watch all the FB Live sessions, head on over to our Youtube channel. I’ve posted all the videos in Youtube as FB has this annoying way of burying all the good stuff under the more recent posts.
The lockdown enabled me to work on what truly mattered – my own projects. Over the years, I’ve struggled with this prioritisation. I had so many interesting projects on the side. But we also had to manage website projects for clients.
So this time, I put myself first. I started working on my own podcast while I was working on contacting people for FB Live. I tend to work on parallel mode now which means 2 projects can be running side-by-side especially if they share similar characteristics.
The podcast and FB Live share many similarities in terms of processes – contacting people, talking to them (prepping them before the recording or the Live session) and ensuring I have the questions ready days before. There’s this peculiarity among all my interviewees (even the seasoned ones) that they want to know what questions are coming at them even though they know how to answer them spontaneously!
I discovered this parallel method by accident. But it works for me as I get double the amount of work done, and double the results (or maybe even more). This is similar to batch processing which I also use when I schedule interviews to record. I aim for 2 interviewees in a day if I am doing interviewees that day (for my podcast). This gets me in the mindset of interviews and keeps the momentum going.
I discovered this method during my language learning with Duolingo. I’ve been a fan of using Duolingo to help me learn small chunks of language daily. I find that switching my brain to something non-business helps me relax and learning a foreign language is even more relaxing.
I was using the app to learn Spanish (have been doing so for more than 2 years now) until I realise I could add another language while I’m inside the app. I decided to add Mandarin. I speak it but I want to recognise the characters. Definitely my Mandarin is much better than my Spanish but I spend at least 10-15 minutes nightly learning both languages. There’s something about switching from “Yo no tengo vestidos verdes” to “Wo he lao shi zuo tian qu ta lan qiu” that makes my brain more alert. The patterns are different and that’s what invigorates mine.
One day I thought if I could learn 2 languages at the same time without missing a beat, what about doing 2 similar projects? Of course in business, we often handle multiple web design projects at a time but that’s something familiar that I’ve been doing for a long time (16 years to be exact).
As a result, I looked at my FB Live and podcast as learning projects. I am learning as I go. I am not completely familiar with each one but as Marie Forleo says, everything is figureoutable.
One of my proudest moments was editing my own podcast and through that process, I now know how to use Garageband! I literally recorded, produced and combined everything in Garageband so I was pretty pleased with myself. One achievement unlocked.
My podcast is in the process of being created as I am going to record all 13 episodes before launching it. This was the project that I presented in Hawaii last year during the Changing Faces programme. (I have recorded the episode where I explain the genesis of this podcast and what it means to me and why so you just have to wait and listen to it.)
A year ago in Hawaii when I was presenting this project to my peers and to Liz of the East-West Center, I had no freaking idea how I was going to make it happen. I knew how to communicate but that was about all I know. I had no idea what it took to make it happen technically. I had no idea what kinds of equipment/software I needed to do all this. I had planned to buy a mic but then COVID happened and I just made do with my earbuds and the mic that came with it. Just shows that it was never about the equipment. It was about me and my readiness to jump into it.
The figuring things out, the initial frustration, the technical setup – learning all these in the past 3 months is far more enriching than baking a cake. I still enjoy cooking and all but I believe my skills are far more useful in other matters – interviewing, researching, learning and pushing myself so far out that I’m hanging by the skin of my nails.
If you’ve never felt nervous doing something, it means what you’re doing is already bordering routine. It signals that you’re ready for something new, unexplored and nerve-wracking. What is that nerve-wracking thing to you? Go and make that happen. And when you made that happen, come back here and leave me a comment! Or email me.