Hi there and welcome to the Everyday Entrepreneur podcast where I, Caitlin Fritz help you reach your entrepreneurial potential. Together we can build your dream social impact business so that you can leave a legacy beyond your nine-to-five. Hello, hello, and welcome to this week's episode of Everyday Entrepreneurship. It is Valentine's Day week! Woohoo! Amazing! Happy Valentine's Day. I am grateful and honored that every single one of you turns in and listens to this podcast, and it's really something I love doing. And I love supporting founders like yourselves. So if you're just joining for the first time, welcome. My name's Caitlin. I'm an award winning entrepreneur, enterprise educator, and business coach. I have worked with some of the leading universities in the UK and abroad, and I've supported over 950 founders to build, grow, and scale their impact led businesses. So if you have a heart, For impact, um, and you are a founder, a future founder, or a small business owner, then you are tuning in to the right place. And today, very much in the seasons of love theme, I want to talk a little bit about emotions when it comes to building a business. Because this was an honest conversation I had with a founder, genuinely, um, earlier this week. Because Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, you name it, those social media platforms show a one One side, one lens of the founder journey. It is not all networking drinks and champagne. It is not all standing up on big stages and pitching. There's a lot of hard work. I would even argue some heartache. That comes when it, when it's building a business, when you're building your business, it, it is not, um, as glamorous as some make it out to be, and I feel like having an authentic conversation around that, especially around this time of year, um, is something I really want to discuss in this week's episode. So, the first thing I want to discuss is passion will only get you so far. Don't get me wrong. I love a passionate founder. I love working with individuals who truly care about the nuances of the problem they're trying to solve. And they have a heart for their customers, their users, and they have that drive and ambition. You need that. Especially in today's, you know, age and climate. But how I spoke to a founder earlier was this is a lot like a gasoline tank. Passion can fluctuate. It's not always going to be full all of the time. There are going to be times where it feels like it is on absolute empty. And it's really only one part of the moving vehicle. Yeah, it's a really, really important part, but drive and discipline, those are the wheels of the car. You need to not just have passion, but you need to have consistent energy and effort in showing up to make this passion come to life. A really good kind of book around this is, is around habits. So if you haven't read, um, things like Atomic Habits, you know, you can really build on those passionate moments, but also accomplish what you need to accomplish in your business through day in, day out discipline. Yeah, that's not the most fun, like, valentine, um, but it's a really important conversation, especially around emotion, when it, when you're on your founder journey. Another piece of advice that was actually given to me from a founder, um, and it stuck with me, was you need to have joy in what you're doing. Now, much like passion, joy fluctuates. But if you truly feel like you, you, you put in the discipline day in, day out, and you are absolutely dreading talking to that customer, or you get anxiety around making your next podcast, or you're really not having fun, and I use that in air quotes, I think joy is a better word. In the work you're doing, I recommend pausing. What's going on? Um, has your priorities changed? Have your motivations or desires or where you want to take the business changed? You do need to have some spark in your work because I can, I can tell with myself and with others when they are in those states of flow. And the work they're doing brings them joy. That doesn't mean it's not hard work! But, it's rewarding. So, really evaluate if something is not bringing you joy. I know that sounds very Marie Kondo. But, you might be doing the wrong thing. You might be doing the right thing at the wrong time. Or you might, you know, be trying to do the right thing for the wrong reasons. And getting those priorities straight, especially early in the year, will help you have a really hopefully productive and enjoyable time building your business. And the last sort of point when it comes to understanding the emotions, those closed door emotions. In the founder journey really is about just like building a business is a rollercoaster. You will feel a lot of emotions, whether you are building a service based business, a product, a technology, you name it. Much like finding product market fit is a rollercoaster. Having that level clear founders head. will also be part of that roller coaster journey. When I was speaking to this founder earlier this week, um, I mentioned to her, I was like, you know, building our ed tech business, I think I had some of the highest highs and the lowest lows of being a founder in the exact same week. and that is just, I don't want to say par for the course, but because it is a turbulent and dynamic thing, you know, building a business is not static. There's always a moving target. Our emotions can also fluctuate. And I think as a founder, it's really, really important to prioritize your mental health and your emotions, and your emotional health. Whether that is being able to take a breather, a step back, a walk, have that Ferrero Rocher, um, you need to take care of yourself because in early stage businesses, you are your greatest. And I hope this week, you can give yourself, you know, practice a little self love, reflect on all of the amazing things you've accomplished, give a valentine to a fellow founder friend, Get that chocolate while it's on sale as well, just saying, um, because being in the right headspace will enable you to not only get more joy from the work you're doing, ignite that passion that is in your gas tank, but it will also allow you to really propel your business and those KPIs as well. You can tell when people are on their game. So that's just my little nugget of advice this week. It was sparked from an earlier conversation with an amazing founder. But I love answering questions that you have. So if you have any questions, it can be around topics like this. You know, they're still very related to business, a little abstract, or it can be some hard numbers, you know, what is it like to build a go to market strategy? I am here to talk and support you through every single step of the way. So thank you for listening, enjoy this week, and I hope to hear from you soon. That's it for Everyday Entrepreneurship. Thank you for joining me for this episode of Everyday Entrepreneurship. To stay tuned and most up-to-date, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. You can follow me Caitlin Fritz on Instagram. And if you have any questions about building your business with Impact, drop me an email with the link in the show notes.