What if you only had one day a week to work? What would you want that day to look like?

INCOMING: Declutter, cleansing, clearing, letting go, burning it down - creating space and an open clearing

TO: Regenerate - healing taken to the next level

So, I knew this post was coming- haven't really been sure how to start it as it feels like there is quite a lot to unpack - and, I don't really want to go into the specifics of it which I know you will understand - but it seems to be a thing that needs to be written and shared, doesn't seem that I can escape it (and I don't want to escape it either) so here goes. There are several strands to this, I'll do my best to tie them in together coherently to tell the story properly.

To begin. We had a situation this year with one of my kids becoming quite unwell, and which resulted in me really not being able to work for a few weeks, and also with the prospect that I wouldn't be able to work much for a few months.

As it turned out, we were incredibly fortunate that this wasn't to be the case beyond about 6 weeks, however what this did - as all crises do - they force you to have to think and act differently. (For many reasons, this one hit pretty hard - but there has also been some incredibly incredible good that has come from the experience as well).

We worked out that realistically, could guarantee that I could work one full day a week. Now, as a self-employed single parent with the responsibility of running a business with overheads, running a house, and caring for teenagers, this presented a challenge.

After spending a couple of minutes looking into carers support and income protection, it became pretty clear that wasn't going to cut the mustard financially, and that instead I needed to focus on what was the best way for me to spend that day at work earning money - in terms of what gave me the most joy, what was the most fun, challenged me, realised the value I bring to my work, utilised my knowledge, experience and skill set to their fullest capacity, connected me with the best clients to work with who I could help in the most meaningful way, made good money and with a healthy profit.

To go sideways for a minute. When I first started my business (after being unable to re-enter the workforce in any meaningful part-time capacity after having my kids) I looked at how I could translate my skill set to self employment and landed on business consulting - focused on the business side of things, looking at how we can create better strategies, systems and processes.

I called this business Vivacity Consulting and (accidentally) started working with mums in business helping them set up and grow their businesses - basically because I didn't feel confident enough to put myself forward to go back into bigger businesses after being out of the workforce for so long, didn't feel comfortable to charge a lot of money, wanted to provide affordable service to help people who didn't have a lot of money... basically just stuck in my own limiting beliefs trying to convince myself of something more noble in that.

But not long after, when my life imploded, and I had to literally rebuild everything from the ground up, what I learned was that for businesses to run effectively, we needed to make sure that the people in the business were ok.

This business then became Fit for Biz (the Vivacity was too confusing as a business name) and I started teaching everything I was learning about turning my own life around, and then this became The Happiness Hunter, like the bringing together of all of it.

And so there I was going along - smashing into myself over and over and over again, not really able to consistently make the headway that I was hoping for financially, but balancing life well, enjoying my work and doing ok, wrote The Happiness Hunter's Guide to Meditation, ran heaps of Retreats, co-hosted the Business Addicts podcast, had Happiness Hunter walks across Australia, launched The Happiness Hunter podcast, also moved house several times, had periods of intense financial pressure, self-sabotage you name it... and then along came Covid.

In 2020, I pivoted my business 100% online and things took off for me massively (this was after getting SMASHED and the kids and I having to move in with my ex, his wife and their daughter while I did the home learning and worked out how to make the business viable again).

I built an epic life-changing 6 week program called The Steps for Change, wrote my second book, It Is Possible, produced a beautiful hardcopy Journal and a beautiful hardcopy Weekly Tracker, created the 4 week Good Morning Sunshine program, had some amazing opportunities to present to people all over Australia.

And then what was working with getting the online stuff out there, and making money, stopped being so successful, there were aspects of online marketing that didn't gel with me, I missed the face to face work.

It's a hard graft standing out online in a very noisy marketplace, and it never really lit me up.

I like just sharing stuff online, I like connecting with people - most of my work comes through face to face connections and referrals or people reaching out to me when something I write or share resonates with them after following me for a while.

When people meet with me in person, they generally want to work with me straight off the bat - I don't need to build funnels, and nurture sequences and clever copy. Don't need to fill my calendar with Discovery calls to get the right conversion rate.

I missed working with businesses. I missed being able to work with really ambitious and motivated people who were gunning for massive things in their lives and businesses and who inherently knew that I was the one to help them and who were super willing and excited to pay me for the help and support I can provide.

So I started to dial down the online part of the business and started focusing on moving more back into the face to face business side of things - working with clients with big visions who were running teams and dealing with all the challenges of that, and helping them with their strategy, their mindset, their energy, looking at how we could drive innovation and improvements and better ways of doing things, running better businesses in ever evolving marketplaces.

New clients coming in. Really interesting work, fabulous clients, me in the zone, helping facilitate and deliver huge mindset shifts, changes in behaviour, enhanced teams and better business operations.

And then we had the family situation this year. And everything kind of just paused.

And the question I asked myself was this:

Seeing as I only have one day a week to work, what did I want to do with that day? What was the work that lit me up? That made good money? That impacted the most amount of people? That had the least friction? That was the easiest and most effortless? That every aspect of it energised me

There were two things:

One- keynote speaking, presenting, being up the front of a room sharing what I know, helping people be better. I feel alive in this space not a thing that can be put into words

And two - I realised I just wanted to focus on working in businesses, with ambitious, intelligent, kind, motivated and inspiring people.

And what came really clearly - I didn't want to run or build an online business.

I wanted to build my business out in the world.

I wanted to put my energy out into the world.

Getting out of the house.

Connecting with groups of people.

I've got stuff to share - it's inspiring, it's useful, it's helpful - it is a life-changing way of looking at things - and I want to share it as far and wide as I can.

And then - looking at how that business model that lives in the physical world, in the world outside, could be leveraged and scaled.

I own the trademark for The Happiness Hunter.

I've been delivering training online and in person for a decade using the Life Integration framework and working on formalising this as a program that can be delivered by other facilitators.

There are other ways that we can scale and leverage business beyond just online.

And if I only had one day a week to work, then the work I was going to do that I could look forward to and that brought huge value to the people I was working with, with the money I made being enough to not only sustain my family and my business, but to have surplus as well - for savings, travel, living all of the experiences of life.

And it gave me permission to simply say no to everything else - requests from other people, time wasting and unprofitable stuff that I was also doing, and everything that didn't truly light me up. That is a powerful filter, to have the mindset of - I expect to be paid for that day for work I love to do.

It forced me to have to think and act bigger - no room left for playing small.

It made me narrow my focus and necessitated stripping back everything that didn't align with my perfect day.

The last few months, have involved a lot of reflection and letting go, decluttering. Also, the sense of inner peace and calm that has accompanied this period in our lives has been extraordinary. I haven't been worried at all, not like I have in the past.

And so today it is the formal line in the sand.

That idea of if I could only work one day a week - the thinking behind that - means that now, I am expanding that out into every single day of the week, doing the work every day that is my ideal work day.

Narrowing my focus, going all in.

Burning the boats as Tony Robbins would say.

There is no Plan B.

There is no option but for me to succeed in this new direction. And to succeed in a meaningful and sustainable way, ever expanding outwards.

I no longer have an online arm to my business. I'm no longer delivering The Steps for Change or Good Morning Sunshine programs - programs which delivered multi-six figs in revenue and a very tidy profit. These programs are being dismantled and incorporated into the new program - which is supported by an online training portal but not as an online business.

I've also decided that I am going to let go of the existing database and may look at starting a new one, but not for today.

I love the podcasting, and will continue with both The Happiness Hunter podcast and also the Always With Me podcast. Will keep sharing on Facebook and LinkedIn - am not sure about the other social media channels at the moment, they can sit there for the minute.

Getting back into more connecting with people as people, continuing to share about what is going on and how you can work with me, and supporting you in your endeavours too.

It's like a whole fresh new start. With a whole new energy behind it and a renewed motivation. Letting go of all that has come before with so much gratitude but it's like I just can't carry it all anymore, and I don't want to. And also, I can't make it better for everyone and I can't fix the world. And that's never been asked of me, either.

Simply creating the space - mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually - for the next stage of my growth and that of my business, while being present to everything and everyone in my life.

Sometimes the lessons we need to learn in life come from very unexpected quarters.

Thanks for reading, and if you got this far, I hope you got what you needed from it as well.

Love, Fiona xxx