Hey fellow entrepreneurs, welcome to the Buckets and Boone Gates Studio with Kim White, Jill Olish, and many other brilliant entrepreneurs. Determined to solve world problems for entrepreneurs, this community is changing how we look at the big things we do on our business adventure and sharing from their own lives ways to protect our time, money, and bandwidth. this show is designed for you the entrepreneur to hear behind the scenes stories of real business people across the globe and learn what is possible for you keep listening to join today's juicy conversation with kim and jill Welcome to the Buckets and Boongates studio. I am Jill Olish and I am joined by the fierce Kim White. Kim, it is a pleasure to be in the studio again today. I love it, Jill. I love being with you. Well, today we are talking about rest as a strategic business tool, not laziness. If you feel guilty every time you're not producing, this conversation is for you and me personally. Guilt is something I feel very often. So if you listening, just know you're not alone. Kim, you have been a huge help in me having less guilt when it comes to rest. What have you seen happen for yourself and even for others when rest is ignored? My goodness, Stilla, when you ignore rest, I think you get less and less and less productive. You get more and more and more haggard, I'm going to call it, and you don't think clearly. I think that's one of my biggest lessons learned is I thought if I would push and get things done, I could make things happen quicker or faster. you know, more successfully. And reality is the more tired you get and the, the more you press like that. Now there's seasons. I get it. If you're in launch season, it's a little less stress and like there are times, but when you are constantly pushing yourself, you get less productive and your thinking gets off. So then you're saying like, yes to things you really shouldn't be. You're saying no to things you really shouldn't be. You're just, it's like you don't think clearly because at the end of the day, I've got a huge newsflash for everyone. You're human. Everybody is human first and entrepreneur and business owner after that. So I think it's really important. You know, when When you push past your own limits, you're working late, you're saying yes to everything, you're never truly off. And the cost is your health. I've told several times the cost of me sitting in an office building looking out my window at the sunrise coming up and realizing I was going to die there if I didn't do something different. And I only giggle because it's really true. It's either giggle or cry because it was a scary time. We can put ourselves in that position and it's only us that can change it. So other costs are relationships. resentment towards your business, hating doing business. And I've been there. You know, I think I have been burned out in several different seasons of doing business. My first business was at sixteen. I'm fifty nine. That's a lot of math. But I've had different layers of it from being foolish, not resting is actually foolish. It is not about being lazy. It is not about any of that is actually foolishness. We think we can push our bodies past the point our bodies can actually go. And I know we can endure more a lot of times than what we think. And I get all of that. But when you use a lifestyle of no rest, you really do lessen your humanity, you lessen what you're capable of, you lessen your wisdom, you lessen so many things. So it comes with huge mistakes. If anybody's made a mistake in business and they regret it or feel guilty about it, let me know because I'll give you my list. You'll feel better. Like I have a long list. And most of those mistakes were made from pushing past Rest, pushing past grieving, not taking time to be human. It really is true. And I had some very wise people say that to me when I was younger. And did I listen? Of course not. I like ran right past that thinking, no, I have to be a superhero to be successful. And reality is when I slowed down is when I actually got the success I was really running fast trying to find. So it's costly mistakes. I think health is one of the easiest ones for us to recognize. And that's coming for me as someone who does get sick and who has a child who gets sick. And even then when caring for a sick family member, we don't consider the rest that we should be taking and, because of our caretaking taking a toll on us, that we just prolong then that illness that we're recovering from, you know, oh, I feel okay today. I can make it in and, you know, do a little bit of work today. No, sit back, go ahead and keep getting your rest, you know, and I've been urged that many times to just let it, let myself rest because it's just going to make me worse off if i don't a lot of times if we'll rest like when we first start to feel some kind of bad in our body a lot of times if we'll take take a day and rest we'll avoid the long term but because we have been taught i think as as like a culture to hustle I think that that, and, you know, we talked about in previous episodes of, of, about hustle things, but I think when we are taught to fight that and let's be clear, I'm not saying you stay in bed, stay in bed for, you know, every day for a month. That is not what I'm talking about. It's just, we fight that feeling of needing rest. So we get, I don't even know, what do you call it when you're, it's not seduced by the TV, but like, it's not mesmerized. You can get paralyzed from it. Yes. It's a couch-locking paralysis of just sucked in. So a lot of times instead of going to rest when we're so tired, we'll get sucked into that and we'll stay up later than we would have. Because and that's where things start to can start to go downhill is now you're extra tired and you're not going to give yourself permission to rest the next night either. So it's like this ongoing thing that I think we should do what we can for our health. I absolutely do think that. I think one of those things, though, is rest. Right. if we don't give ourselves the ability to be human and to rest, then it turns into this bad and then worse and then worse and then worse. And the mistakes you can make in business are devastating. It can cause you to lose your business. It can cause you to go to bankruptcy. It can cause you to, it can cause you harm on so many levels. And I'm not trying to simplify everything. But I am saying that rest is part of that. Rest can be where things start to go off the rails. And so when you have rest and you feel guilty about it, that's even worse because you're not resting when you're trying to rest because you feel guilty about the rest. Just think of all the people that have derailed and have had those things happen, what if they'd have made better decisions? What if they would have had better understanding of situations because they had enough bandwidth to understand? I just think that there's something to that. If you take a drive on, you know, we laugh and call it a Sunday drive. If you take a Sunday drive and you look at businesses or places as you drive, you see a lot of them run down, a lot of them abandoned, a lot of things. Well, think about that. That was somebody's dream at one point. That was somebody building a business or building a life. And now it's abandoned. If they had, and I'm not trying to make this like too big, but if they had known how to rest when they needed to rest or make wiser decisions, would they still be there? And we blow it off as it's just one night's sleep. No, it really, it really matters. Yeah. It all adds up. Yeah. So it's not a sexy business strategy to go without rest. Yeah, for sure. Oh, now that we shared some of those confessions, let's break down what real rest can actually look like in our businesses. And Kim, I think a lot of times we can feel guilty about rest because we automatically assume that rest equals sleep. So there's other ways that we can rest. Can you go over those with us? Absolutely. I think these are very powerful categories to, to like delve into. And I think everybody should take notes. I'm just going to say that there are four that we want to talk about. So one is the physical rest is what, you know, Jill and I were talking about with the sleeping or the naps. I take a nap every Thursday afternoon just to be out there with it because I have a long day on Thursday, self afflicted, self inflicted, long day. I love my Thursdays. It's mastermind groups. But I take a nap so that I have my A game when I get to the evening mastermind. Only evening I work, y'all. It's the slowing down, slowing your body down so that you can get that physical rest you need. Maybe you need an earlier bedtime. I know for a long time I did and I fought it because nobody goes to bed that early. But y'all, I'm going to make a confession. I had a really busy last three days. I went to bed at seven last night. I think that that is something that most people don't want to hear. I'm super productive. It helped me to be productive. So I'm going to just put that out there. Stretching, walking without trying to do something else, like actually You know, just walking and enjoying where you're walking, being present. Mental rest is category number two. It's giving your brain a break from constant problem solving. My poor little brain will tap me on the shoulder, I feel like, and say, please, please, just a little bit of time. It's the time that you're not on the computer or on your phone. It's maybe journaling. Sometimes journaling is a thing. I'm a talker. I'm not a writer. So mine is I can talk like I can record something versus writing something. I think both are very powerful, but whatever you can do, um, reading that's not about learning something, reading for entertainment value, just to escape for a few minutes with your brain so that you can get, you know, um, what i'm gonna go back for a second joe what is it when you are like a zombie like you're you can't you can't change it oh my gosh i need this word if you all know the word like messages and send it in but it's it's when you're when you're focused on something when you're focused on something and cannot do something different you can't ask me i have baby brain There's a word and I just can't come up with it right now. But when you're focused so hard on something, you need a disruption. You need a disruptor. And sometimes entertainment is the disruptor. It doesn't affect my life. Like watching a show on TV doesn't affect my life. It's, you know, somebody else's drama, somebody else's thing. What's a moment of, like a home improvement show or watching whatever it is, just for a minute, just for like an episode or a little bit, just don't get locked in on the, whatever word I can't find, don't get locked in on the, where you can't get away from it. Just, it's a disruptor for your mental sake. So three is the third category and it's social or emotional rest. It's time away from, and you all know that when we're out in public, this is what we do. We have this on button that comes on because we have this feeling of being available for everyone or being open for everyone or being something for everyone around us. That is a really important part to pay attention to. Sometimes we just need to be alone. Some of my favorite time in my day is what I call piddling. I can do dishes or do whatever it is, just piddling around. But there's no pressure on me to make any decisions, solve any problems. It's just a sweet time. A lot of times I'll play music. A lot of times I'll, you know, dance around or whatever, you know, I'm doing. But it's a non-scripted time for me to be by myself. Quiet mornings. I love my morning time. And boundaries around social expectations is another part of this is, you know, if I show up to something, don't expect me to lead everything if I'm not, if that's not what I'm there for. Sometimes as a leader, it's hard to go someplace that you get to just be a follower. But you need breaks from that. So something something like important to my husband and I is we do date nights. But a lot of times we don't want to go out somewhere. to do a date night where there's a lot of noise, there's a lot of people. Our break from that is we'll either have dinner, just the two of us will have a picnic or we'll go for a walk where there's not, you know, just on a path where there's not a lot of people we have to interact with. Those are social risks. Those are emotional kind of risks. I just need to be with him. I don't want to be with everybody else. Like that's an example. So the fourth category is creative and spiritual rest. So it's space to refill you. It inspires you. It gives you a connection. You know, prayer time, meditation, any of those kind of things I think are important. Some people find it in art. Some people find it in making music. Some people find it outdoors. There are things outdoors that if you just notice, like how amazing is that, you know, the flowers are blooming. It is beautiful to see the birds flying around or, you know, just see nature through a child's eyes. I will say that is a very special way to have that little bit of rest where you're not all just solving the world's problems. You actually are taking enough of a break to refresh you and fill your cup. One of my sweet friends, Angela Stilwell, says to serve from your saucer. And so you fill your cup to overflowing so that you are actually giving from the saucer around the cup. And I think that's brilliant. It does. So rest lets you show up as your favorite version of yourself in and out of business. And it does require those four categories. It does. Yeah. Well, we have four kinds of ways to rest that will get us back to our A game. It's not so easy, but it's always easier to know about it than to actually do it, right? So we can take it all in, but to go ahead and practice it is always going to be where it can be a challenge. So Kim, what does it look like to build rest into our business week? I know you already do that on Thursdays. You told us about your Thursday naps. So let's take this step further. So we like, I don't work on weekends except for when the first Saturday of every month when we do sticky notes, sticky non, sticky notes. I can't talk. Sticky note time guided weekend. That's the only Saturday I work. And I think that has been a game changer for me rest wise, because I really do. turn off the computer, and I don't open it again until Monday. I turn off my phone. I don't, like, I don't take calls that are unnecessary. I just don't. And this is something that I've set that up as boundaries. And I think that's one of the harder things to do, but I think it's very important. Having, you know, a daily walk in the sunshine, that's a lovely thing. Making making your tech timed i'll just say it that way so before you go to bed don't do any kind of screen time don't do any kind of that sets you for a better night's rest so and here's the thing rest doesn't have to be long i i think this is very important to understand it doesn't have to be like a huge spa day and a whole week's vacation to get that rest It's the little things we do every day that causes us to be able to rest in different parts. So turning off screen time helps you sleep better, which means you don't have to sleep twenty hours to get that rest. You know, it doesn't even help you to sleep longer like that unless you're ill. It's the getting sleep that counts. It's the restful sleep. I think the walking helps me. This is something I have proven in my life. The more Steps I get in a day within reason, the more I rest more soundly. So I'm setting myself up for better rest by doing those kind of things. I also have no meeting days. I have days that I'm not going to people. I can work on projects. I can do things. But I have days off. of peopling so that I can work on what I need to for the business and not just in all of the things that we need to do for our business. So I think those are some of the things you can start doing anytime you start doing anything off what you usually do, the full throttle mode. Anytime you start doing that and you start to feel guilty, Stop and become aware. Why? Why do you feel guilty about it? What is it that you feel like you're not doing enough of? Because it's some sort of judgment. You're judging yourself. If you're feeling guilty about something, there's judgment involved. There's something going on and you have to figure it out. You have to be the detective of it. Because if you find out what it is, you can address it. If you don't, then it can go on and on and on. Um, rest is part of my job as a CEO. I believe that to my middle. I also think my brain works better when it gets breaks. And let me tell you a good dance break can throw me into math, like major creates mode and creative mode is. Doesn't look the same for everybody, but for me, it's solving problems. I'm super creative in solving problems. I may not can paint you a picture, but I can. I can solve problems may not be able to, you know, do a sculpture, but, but I can solve problems and that's my creative mode. I need having a dance break throughout the day. That's another, another little hack. You can do get up and walk a little bit that those don't seem like rest. Like they, they sound like they're the opposite, but it's not taking a break from something. It's recharging yourself. Recharging. Yeah. I think my two favorite things, I'm a grounding person, so I like to go walk in the grass. I do double that up with a chore usually of taking care of the animal cleanup outside. So, but it's mindless things then that, you know, taking a break from really doing anything. So I'm not usually listening to music or a podcast or anything. I'm letting my mind just be clear. And I get to do that with my walks to school with my son. Also, you know, we're we happen to live so close that we are walkers and I've really taken advantage of just being mindful on those walks, which I find does get your brain working just a little bit differently when it's starting your day out. And then when it's kind of closing your day out for work, which has been really cool to see. And you set him up for a different kind of day because he's got some of that energy, some of that calmness, some of that peace that he takes into school with him. Yeah. And I get to take home with me. Since implementing not just boundaries, but the awareness that I need rest. I've seen so much better work come for me. So like I have those boundaries, I don't work outside that, but actually implementing the rest to really does recharge us and give us a better output for our businesses. I still need to remind myself frequently, though, that rest is productive. Because that is still a struggle to get over with. Like this actually will help us be more productive. And we want you listening to walk away with not just a full ear of information today, but with a win. So Kim, what can we do today for more rest in our businesses? Your sexy homework for today is think about the like one thing, just one thing that you can do to set yourself up for rest. So maybe it is going tech free, you know, an hour before you go to bed. Maybe it's taking half a day off. Maybe it's an uninterrupted walk. Don't take calls. Just literally go walk in nature and feel and see what's going on around you. One thing. you know, maybe it's one early bedtime. I know on Wednesday nights, we talk about Thursday, but Wednesday night, I actually go to bed earlier on Wednesday nights because I have an early Thursday. So by putting those things in my calendar and doing the things regularly, here's the deal. If you put it in your calendar, you have to do it. But if you don't do it, it causes, you know, causes you not to trust yourself, but put it in your calendar, do something, just do those something little and see what it changes for you. Tell someone else about it. You can tell us, email us, whatever. And let us know for accountability sake. But if you will do some of these things, you will find out guilt can be, you know, put off. You don't have to have that guilt when you know it really does make you a better CEO of your company. It makes you a better human. It makes you a better parent. It makes you a better everything. You can make wiser decisions if you get enough rest. Yeah. Let's recap a bit. Rest is fuel, not a luxury. It's a necessity. It's something we need to do. And it helps us connect back to our, like what our whole purpose of in building a sexy business and sexy life. You want to take notice of how your work feels after even just one week of intentional rest. So that way, yeah, you can be encouraged to go ahead and put it on your calendar and make it part of your weekly plan for what you do in your business. So if this has helped share this episode with one business friend who could benefit from working rest into their business as well. And next week, next time, we are going to be talking about simplify to scale. And we'll dive deeper into that. So thank you so much for listening in today. We couldn't make this podcast better without you. So we hope to see you next time. Love y'all. Thank you for joining Kim and Jill in the Buckets and Boomgate studio for today's conversation. Don't forget to follow the show for future juicy episodes and they can't wait to chat with you next week.
