My UNSTUCK Business story is a harder journey to write about than Life, Career, and Wellness. I struggle to consistently recognize my achievements and accomplishments and find myself measuring success based on income, a sure-fire way to sabotage my efforts during a small business incubation period. A business takes time to grow, and patience is not my best virtue. This is just one example of how I’m continuing to evolve and develop my process, along with my clients.
I never aspired to have my own business. My father, both a pharmacist and small-business owner, discouraged it. In 2008 I had a surgical procedure, leaving me with too much time and too little money to buy new things. That’s when I started my first business, bobbi kahn design jewelry. I love creating jewelry so much that sometimes I forget to breathe. When I sold my first piece off my body, the thrill was so great I was hooked.
My husband, Herb, is my Chief Financial and Cheerleading Officer. He kept insisting that I had the talent to be a creative jewelry designer, but I didn’t have a business without a business plan. I ignored him for many years and ended up with a costly hobby that I funded through my HR job earnings.
Finally, I listened to Herb, and with a business plan in place, I suddenly had a real jewelry business. It was not difficult to understand revenue in and expenses out, but learning technology and social media was excruciating for me. It still is.
When I anticipated my HR job might be eliminated in 2017, I invested in coursework to market my business online. I hoped to sell as much from my website as I did at in-person shows. That never happened, but I learned a ton, which has served me well in my second and third businesses. I also learned the importance of hiring people to do the things I hated doing. These professionals are better, faster and ultimately saved me time and money. I also learned that doing art fairs is physically exhausting.
In 2019, Herb bought two home inspection franchises and acquired two more small Farmer’s Insurance Agencies. With these new opportunities, I approached Herb, suggesting I become his Chief Sales and Marketing Officer for the new businesses. This led to an exciting professional partnership, complementing the personal one we had already cemented. In February 2020, after numerous training sessions and obtaining licensure, we were pumped to implement our business plan. Only weeks later, the nation shut down due to COVID-19.
As is with anything in life, we expect obstacles, but it’s how we deal with them that predicts the outcome of our success. When COVID restrictions began to loosen and Herb and I could begin promoting our home inspection business again, things were great. We developed a healthy balance for managing our personal and professional lives together, which led to great success. It turns out we make a great team! But, as anticipated, we hit a few curveballs, and oh boy, what a learning process for us both.
We learned of several contract violations by the home-inspection business franchisor that were unresolvable, leading us to terminate our relationship with the company. Herb and I were devastated. We had invested so much time, energy, passion, and money into this opportunity and felt utterly betrayed by those we had come to trust. Yet, the entire experience brought us closer together as a couple and exponentially expanded our knowledge and experience as business owners.
At this same time, COVID led to the cancellation of all my jewelry shows for 2020. This left me with nothing productive to do for the foreseeable future. I quickly became a wicked online Canasta and Mah Jongg player, but that wasn’t quite as fulfilling as our home inspection business or my jewelry business.
I knew I had another career in me as I prefer to work more than almost anything else. For more than 20-years, I’d held onto a vision of becoming a Certified Coach at age 62 and transition from jewelry design and sales to coaching. With all shows canceled and our inspection business behind us, I enrolled in the Coach Training Alliance certification class and launched UNSTUCK Coaching, five years ahead of schedule.
I immediately hired people to do all of the necessary things I don’t enjoy or am not good at. My website, logo, graphics, and email tech were all outsourced right away. The attorney and accountant were already in place because of our other businesses. The stage was set for me to concentrate on being a career Coach.
Right now, the nation is emerging out of the COVID pandemic as vaccines become more readily available. Gratefully, my art fair season is starting to shape up, and I expect to have several in-person events this year while still maintaining COVID safety precautions.
I’m excited to do both businesses because they fulfill me in different ways. I’ve never given birth to a human, though I’ve heard, if you knew how hard and painful it was, you might not ever do it the first time. Yet when that baby is born, you forget the pain and sometimes do it again. And again. Having a baby and raising a child is a joyful and painful experience most parents would never trade. I think birthing and growing my businesses is the same.
What do you want to grow? A business? A new career? A passion project? I’m here to help. Let’s jump on a call to set the stage for your UNSTUCK life.
Barb Mason, Coach
I am a coach and jewelry designer. At UNSTUCK Coaching, I help middle-agers make changes toward the most fulfilling employment experience. As my own first coaching client, I know what it takes to get UNSTUCK.
Unlock access to a FREE coaching session and downloadable journaling guide when you sign up for the UNSTUCK newsletter.
In a recent meeting with a client, she lamented being so busy with paid client work; she didn’t have time to plan and strategize for future business growth. Her revenue is growing, but she hasn’t yet achieved her financial goals. She feels if she doesn’t take time to plan out her business, her business will start to run her. Does this sound familiar? Where does all that time go in a day?
Many business owners are drawn to entrepreneurship because it gives them control over how they structure their days. My client prioritizes the early morning hours for working out, solitude and coffee. She takes a break mid-day to take a walk with her husband and grab lunch. Who wouldn’t want to do that? Amazing, right?!
My client indicated she needs time to plan and create new products and services while still meeting the needs of her current customer base. She questioned why she didn’t have enough time to get it all done. Was she wasting time on social media? Shopping online? Texting friends and family?
During our coaching session, we agreed there was a straightforward way to figure this out. She would track her time. For three days, she would use a simple paper and pencil tracking system to write down each task and how long it took. At our next meeting, when I asked what she’d learned, she said, “I’m a busy girl!”. And she knew she’d been more productive because she was tracking everything. Even so, she hoped she’d find out where she was wasting time and then use that found time to plan instead. That’s not what happened. She didn’t see the pockets of time she expected and needed to focus on her business. She also learned that some client work took longer than it should, given the client’s fee. We discussed that some companies plan to terminate 25% of their clients each year because they’re no longer profitable.
This time-tracking exercise did not require any fancy software or app, which can sometimes be a deterrent if you have to figure out how they work. In just three days, my client gathered some valuable information:
She is quite busy
She’s not earning the revenue she should for some of the work she is doing
She’s more productive when she tracks time (and may keep that as an ongoing tool),
If she doesn’t do something differently, she’s not going to run her business the way she wants to.
So now what? I asked her:
When do you do your best work?
When are you least productive?
She shared that she’s most productive when she first gets to her desk in the morning and least productive on Friday afternoons. Initially, she was hoping to block off the entire day on Fridays for planning and strategy work. With her current client load, that’s not realistic, so instead, she’ll carve out an hour first thing in the morning for these growth activities. The rest of the day will be devoted to client work. That’s five solid hours she wasn’t designating before.
Are you struggling to find time for the things that matter to you in your business or job? Try this easy time-tracking exercise first to see where you’re spending your time. A few simple tools and a little bit of effort can reveal a lot and allow you to be more intentional in your planning efforts.
Barb Mason, Coach
I am a coach and jewelry designer. At UNSTUCK Coaching, I help middle-agers make changes toward the most fulfilling employment experience. As my own first coaching client, I know what it takes to get UNSTUCK.
Unlock access to a FREE coaching session and downloadable journaling guide when you sign up for the UNSTUCK newsletter.
I think it was Stephen Covey, author of the 7-Habits of Effective People, who said to start with the end in mind. For that reason, I suggest when figuring out what goals you want to set to become UNSTUCK, begin by writing your obituary. Ask yourself:
What matters most to you?
Have you done it?
If you died soon, would you regret it?
How many times does tragedy befall someone we know, and we swear that life is too short? We say we are going to travel more, work less, run a marathon, learn another language (see travel more), attend more weddings and birthday parties than funerals, say I love you, slow down, speed up, start exercising or achieve [fill in the blank].
One of my brothers said children are born into this world as perfect beings. Our job as parents is to do our best not to screw them up too much. My husband and I do not have children, but there came a time in my life when I realized I had to stop blaming things on my parents that I could resolve as an adult.
I began my UNSTUCK Life journey in my early 30s when I got into therapy. My life wasn’t going as I wanted, and I knew things could be better for me. I also knew I didn’t know how to make it happen. Therapy was a safe and magical place where I challenged so many of my assumptions. New ways of doing, thinking, and being became the norm.
I could end the story of my UNSTUCK Life here because if you’ve been in therapy and worked hard, then you already understand. But then this wouldn’t be a valuable story.
I was a devotee of the Covey paper calendar and organization system. The front was for goals, and you were supposed to write them as if they were already done. Today we call this the Law of Attraction, or, Manifesting Your Life. A few of my goals were:
I am fit, athletic, and run marathons.
I am a knowledgeable Jew who is a Bat Mitzvah.
My goals turned into accomplishments as part of my UNSTUCK Life:
Becoming a Bat Mitzvah at 37 – When I was young, all the kids started Hebrew School to prepare for their B’nai Mitzvot (the plural of Bar and Bat Mitzvah). My mom said I could join them, but I couldn’t have a party. She thought this was a good test of a ten-year-old’s motives. Would I want a Bat Mitzvah if there was no party? Absolutely not. I resented her for years because what ten-year-old would have been so spiritually motivated to prepare for their Bat Mitzvah without the promise of a huge payday?
By my mid-30s, and after a bit of therapy, it occurred to me that I could have an UNSTUCK Life moment and become a Bat Mitzvah. In treatment, I discovered it was time to let go of the resentment I had carried for 25-years. One friend stated, ‘your parents can mess you up, but only you can decide to stay that way.’
My adult Bat Mitzvah was one of the most challenging and rewarding accomplishments of my life. I learned how to read Hebrew, how to chant, how to read from the Torah, and I did it all as if I was 13. I studied with the Cantor each week, diligently waiting outside her office until it was my turn. My only regret was failing to thank Cantor Shelly Kazinski in my speech (D’Var Torah). She was an incredible mentor.
Training for a marathon at 39 and 220 pounds – I weighed 220 pounds when I signed up with the Leukemia/Lymphoma Team in Training. They help you train for a marathon while you raise money for cancer research. My dad died that same summer of 2001, but I kept running. I joined Weight Watchers (again), and I told everyone in my fundraising appeal letter that I was raising money, losing weight, and running a marathon. Sadly, I got a stress fracture in my pelvis during the Chicago Half-Marathon, which ended my running career. In my UNSTUCK Life, I’d run the best and most I could ever have imagined, and I lost weight. I have never been more proud than when I was pushing my physical limits, and I’ll never, ever run another marathon.
Becoming certified as a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) – Certifying for my SPHR was just plain hard. The essential UNSTUCK Life lesson I learned from doing this is that you can achieve all of your goals if you work and study hard enough. I was never a devoted student, so accomplishing my adult Bat Mitzvah and passing my SPHR exam on the first try proved I could do it. All of it.
Getting married at 42 – Perhaps the most rewarding example of my UNSTUCK Life was meeting my husband, Herb when I was 40. (Read the full story here). I owned a two-flat in Chicago with my sister, and we were delighted with our lives as single women. We never thought we’d get married. And one day, I decided I wanted a relationship. I wish I could remember why I changed my mind about remaining single. It could’ve been that my sister and I went on another diet called Optifast. I was feeling good and confident, so naturally, it must be time to find a husband?! That was on a Tuesday. By Thursday, I’d chatted with Herb on the phone. Friday, the next day, we met in person; one year later, we were engaged and married the year after that.
No single person has helped me become who I always hoped to be more than Herb. Significant risk brings great reward. A successful relationship (any relationship) requires trust, vulnerability, honesty, failure, success, and most of all, unconditional love. I express gratitude every day that Herb is my husband.
Starting my two businesses – I credit Herb with giving me the courage, strength, and confidence to further my UNSTUCK Life as he insisted I start my first business, bobbi kahn design jewelry, in 2008. Since then, I left my corporate career, started and ended a company with Herb, continued running my jewelry business, and launched my coaching practice, UNSTUCK Coaching.
How do you accomplish great things? A therapist or two (or three), best friends, a supportive family, great bosses, amazing mentors, a wonderful life partner, and a career coach whose only goal is to help you build the life of your dreams.
In writing my obituary, these things I know for sure…
I want to be sure I laugh a lot, appreciate the important people in my life, accomplish the goals I feared would elude me, and get out of situations that do not serve me. I want to have the self-confidence that allows me to help others to do the same thing.
Together, we can get your UNSTUCK Life on track and Imagine your life’s possibilities. Like Stephen Covey says, it starts by having the end in mind. Contact me today to book a sample call.
Barb Mason, Coach
I am a coach and jewelry designer. At UNSTUCK Coaching, I help middle-agers make changes toward the most fulfilling employment experience. As my own first coaching client, I know what it takes to get UNSTUCK.
Unlock access to a FREE coaching session and downloadable journaling guide when you sign up for the UNSTUCK newsletter.
Recent Comments