More chats with my Husband..

Today’s ep is another chit chat tea spill with Mr Oleander and Finch. I always want to show up and share the reality of BTS of business, relationships, motherhood and how bloody hard that balance is. 

I’d love to hear your thoughts - if you want more, I’m happy to record another with Aidan in 6 months.. let me know! 

listen to our original chat (EP 22) https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a-candid-conversation-with-my-husband-lets-splash/id1694144495?i=1000627776651

Here's the podcast ep I mentioned in this ep - https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/emergency-episode-ex-google-officer-finally-speaks/id1291423644?i=1000615239948

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Thank you for yo...

Transcript

0:13

Welcome to Designing Success from Study to Studio. I'm your host, Rhiannon Lee, founder of the Oleander Finch Design Studio. I've lived the transformation from study to studio and then stripped it bare and wrote down the framework so you don't have to overthink it. In this podcast, you could expect real talk with industry friends, community, connection, and actionable tips to help you conquer whatever's holding you back. Now let's get designing your own success. My guest on the podcast today, I think he's the first podcast guest that we've had that's been a repeat guest and that is my husband, Aiden. Last time I had, I interviewed Aiden on this podcast. I got such amazing feedback and so many people were like, Oh my God, it was so refreshing to actually just hear a couple. Go talk about the challenges of running a business, running a family, what all of that looks like as a shared experience. And so I thought, let's do it again. The first time we spoke, we talked a lot about what that very early days was like and his role in supporting me whilst I was. trying to find my way, trying to set up a business and everything that being an emerging designer entails. And this time I wanted to talk more in the current day situation and what it's like for us now that I'm in my sixth year of business our family's getting busier, our kids are. We've got a couple of school aged kids and a toddler, which, when I started the business, we had a two, a two year old and a baby, like all sorts of things have changed. And business is such an evolution and changing scape anyway, which we talk about a lot in this episode. We also talked a little bit about AI and a little bit about just, I dunno, I just felt like you guys might like to be a fly on the wall. When we get an opportunity to sit and have a conversation like this, um, I did very little editing actually. I think it's the podcast episode that I've taken the least out cause I just think it's really important to hear it as it was recorded and, get a real sense that it's not just you and your partner who go through these things. I've tried to be as honest and open about everything that goes on in my life as I always try to be, and certainly on the podcast always am. I just, as you will hear inside of this episode, haven't had as much time for social media and those sorts of things this year. So anyway, I hope you enjoy this conversation between my husband, Aiden, and myself. If you have any questions or any feedback, if you'd like to hear from him more often, he's probably going to be my co host soon. if the feedback from this episode is anything like the last episode. But as I am telling you every week, there's a line at the top of your show notes that says, text me and tell me what your thoughts are. I would love, love, love to hear what you think about it. I would also love it if you get a second to share this podcast title with a friend. There are so many designers out there who I think would just absorb this. These conversations, like a sponge, I know I would have in the early days. And even now I would absolutely love to hear some of the interviews. Some of the guests that I've had, uh, have just been so extraordinarily generous with their knowledge and with their sharing of their skill. And I think it's something that, you know, why. And I truly believe this with all of my heart. I am not into gatekeeping. I'm like, we all win when we all collectively get better. And it's part of the reason, um, that you're here in this conversation. We talk a lot about AI. It's like, let's all be faster, better, stronger together. Okay. That's it for me. I will chat to you next Tuesday. Bye for now. All right. So the first time you were on the designing success podcast, we spoke a lot about what it was like as the person witnessing the first year of business, or like when I was an emerging designer and that sort of approach. And I thought it might be nice to get you back on the podcast and actually talk speak more to current circumstances than like the fact that what this is the sixth year of business and statistically they say not that many businesses last post five years and mine is still going and will still be going for a long time yet, I hope. So yeah, I thought we could have a chat about even, have you noticed much of a difference in the way the business runs now and then? In terms of how busy you are constantly. Not a lot it's still just a constant treadmill of churning out work trying to wear a dozen different hats to keep things running smoothly, and I honestly don't know how you do it. But, yeah. there's the kind of added pressure, I guess, of helping other people get their businesses on their feet. And so that's a pretty big responsibility that I think you've taken on. There's probably yeah, just an added stress around that, that we certainly pick up on around the house. Yeah. As in that sort of empath feeling when they're going through stressful things or when I'm trying to support them through issues in their own businesses. Yeah, and I think you have, and I don't think this is a criticism, I think it's a quality. You have That real sense of empathy where you do take on other people's stresses, as well and feel a real obligation to help people work through that. So that kind of adds to your own stress and I think you've found ways and means, you correct me if I'm wrong, you've found ways and means of stepping away from The clientele to be able to have that separation. I don't know. What would you think of that clientele being designers or? I was about to say I've stepped right away from my clients and I am very focused on the designer stuff. Yes. And I think that's an evolution. I think. Just as we get better in like with my design clients, I'm much stronger in boundaries and holding those boundaries than I probably was the first second year. And then again, I've had the framework supporting designers for the last 18 months and it's I believe I'm getting stronger again, an evolution of learning of being like, okay it's not my responsibility. I can't make this work for anyone. I can only give you every single tool template and piece of advice that can get you there. But I've had people that have signed up for the framework and have just For whatever reason, imposter syndrome's gotten the better of them, or some things happen and they haven't actually been able to make a business out of it. It's yeah, a small statistic, but it definitely exists. Yeah, I think you get that in any creative form. Like I've been a teacher now for almost ten, ten years and I still get imposter syndrome. I get it as a musician as well. And I think if you're just that kind of person, it's hard to just switch that off and not be that kind of person. I think you've struggled with it yourself, particularly in the early days. I think being able to nurse people through that is. Is a real skill. Yeah, I definitely think it's prevalent in all creative industries, but I also feel like it's because you care so much about the result that you give. So I do see a lot of people that imposter syndrome is just like, could it be better? Could I have designed it better? Could my documents be better? Am I being professional enough? Is this a real business? Is the branding right? Like it's because they care so much. Like it's such a big deal to own your own business. Yeah. There's the added element of should I even be doing this? Am I good enough to be doing this? Do I have the talent? Am I kidding myself? Oh. And those thoughts can really grind you down after a while as well. And you're expected to share this work publicly, like that's, as as you were just saying from it, whether it's music or whatever kind of creative thing it is, it's such a bravery to post something live on social media or on your website or somewhere and say, this is the best that I've got. And then wait. Yeah. And, that, trying to read your audience or wait for that feedback, it's an excruciating time. If, if you get no feedback, that's almost worse than negative feedback because you're still just oh no, what have I done? I do think the group calls are good for that because it is nice to have a safe space or even the group chat that we have in the framework because it's nice when people are feeling like that. Every time anyone's been particularly vulnerable in those conversations that we have offline, if you will it always makes everybody else feel better. Suddenly the whole chat is flooded with me too. Me too. Oh my God, I feel like that. And it just takes one person to be brave and share and say, I've just, I'm overwhelmed. I've had enough. And we've seen this in every year of my business. There are, Such seasons in business. And sometimes like right now I'm having a season where I'm finding a crisis of effort almost with Instagram specifically as a platform.. I've even had a break from the podcast because of other things that have been happening at home and just feeling like it's exhausting to show up as much, and I was over. Committed. I was sharing daily. So my consistency and frequency was more than it needed to be. So I have felt this year you've probably noticed a shift here. I don't post every day. I don't focus as hard in bringing in potential clientele through social media. I've found it more successful to put my time and heart and energy into the podcast, into Pinterest, into referrals and word of mouth. And, my design clients don't find me on Instagram because I don't talk about being an designer. They're all word of mouth anyway. Yeah, doing things like constantly being on social media, you're really having to give part of yourself to that, and if you're doing that every day it can be quite exhausting I think. I know in my own profession one of the reasons that so many teachers are just burned out is because it is really difficult to go into a classroom every day. Cause you're, every class you're giving something of yourself. And it gets very tiring. I think it's probably important for everyone. Who's maybe guilty of spending a little too much time doing the social media side of things who just occasionally pull back a little bit Just to let yourself breathe. I think I found also that it's been a little bit harder this year because It's, it's never been more important to humanize your brand in a world with AI and robots and other things. And I have felt not that I have not been authentic, but I haven't felt like showing up and showing too much behind the scenes, behind the curtain this year, specifically at home, we've had a diagnosis in our house with our eldest diagnosed with autism. And that's something that we've been going through privately as a family. And I have. always been very relatable, open sharing in my social media presence. And I think that's probably really had a flow on cause and effect because I don't want to show up in a way that like everything is sunshine and roses all of the time. And, or I don't want to show up in a way that I haven't wanted to share it. And therefore I haven't wanted to show too much of what's going on at the same time, if that makes sense. Yeah there's always going to be, and I think everyone. It doesn't matter who you are or what your situation, you're always going to have those things in life that are private and they can be a struggle and they can be just an added element of challenge, to try to weave into your professional life as well. You can got to work around it, but it's always going to be there. And for us this year with. Having that diagnosis in the house, it's, we didn't get to, we didn't need to get the diagnosis to realize the challenges of it. Correct. It's just been I don't know. A shift. On survival mode and. And an escalation and a shift and. There's a lot of parental admin that comes into that as well. I think anyone who is anyone who deals with NDIS or deals with any other things, there's a lot of shifts, there's a lot of changes, there's a lot of focuses and, it becomes like a third. Um, Yeah, and you do need to step away sometimes and put that focus back into the family, back into relationships and making sure that you are present enough to yeah, have that shift happen and be able to still show up. So when I dial in with the framework is whenever I'm. Looking over their work, doing anything. I'm all in when I'm all in, but I haven't felt like being as work oriented in this season. And I think that's fine. And the podcast called designing your own success. I think you have to know when to triage and when your children need you more than your work needs you. And when some, there are seasons when it has to be all about work for a little bit, like the startup year that had to be a lot more about work. I think, you work to get to a point where if you're needed, to put your focus somewhere else you can. Yeah. You need to be able to just give yourself permission to step away from the work. And I think you and I have somehow, we've both got these very demanding jobs that are very demanding on the outside of business hours time. But we've been, I think pretty good at just tag teaming and finding a way to When one of us is really under the pump, the other one kind of picks up the slack. Yep. So you'll go hard and to lean into domestic chores and I'll be out here filming the framework till 11pm and then at times where you've got marking or reports or like massive times where you've got a whole stack of essays on your desk, we switch. Yeah. So I think if you're trying to run a business and you've got a partner, you've got a family, it's, it really is a case of. Just making sure that they are okay with finding these ways to just get things done. And your day looks like a bit of a mosaic of tasks, because you've got school drop off in the morning, and then you're into work, and you're doing that until, 3, 3. 15, then you gotta do the school pick up, and then you come back, and then I'll eventually come over at some point. You've gotta go, oh, I've gotta go record or something, or write or whatever, and you're out here, and I'm juggling the kids, and Then they'll come back in and I'll go to karate and you'll be juggling the kids and then I'll come back, oh I've got to do editing or whatever and Why won't they ever sleep? I'm listening to that going, I think normal kids just go to bed after dinner. I don't know, not mine. I just, yeah. Oh, I think most kids are probably the same. Yeah, they are. Everyone seems to complain that they Up and down, out of bed. are awake until two o'clock at night. I think also Yeah, another factor that comes into play this year is just having a busy toddler. I think people forget sometimes that it's When they get mobile. Yeah, and, yep, it just becomes a lot more demanding than the, the newborn stage, or the bit where I put him on a rug, he's still on the rug when I walk back out of the other room. And it's Like on the Wednesdays when I have Marley, I don't work at all. That is absolutely our day. We go do story time at the library and we go do baby chinos and I sometimes have private coaching clients, but even they all know it's a Marley day and they really do contact me sparingly. Like they'll sometimes leave some notes, but they don't expect me to be all over it. That is his day. And that's been something that I guess has been great. The last, Two years specifically, I think since the inception of the framework, I've been very protective of that one day a week where he's not at daycare and it's really, it is his day. Yeah. So I think that's, we've been through this twice already, so that's just going to become more and more demanding. I think one of the things that we've noticed as Atticus's symptoms of autism have escalated, is that with, I guess with a baby and a toddler, people just expect and understand that's going to be demanding on your time, but when you are raising a child who does have autism you have you have your good days and your bad days, just like you do with a toddler. and your bad minutes. Yeah. And sometimes we have those days where you just have to down tools because he's decided today I'm going to make everyone cry. He's having a hard time. He's having a hard time, and those days are very hard work, and like you can't be expected to be trying to be productive on those days. You just can't. And that's a lot of the reason my days look the way that they do is because there's always been difficulty post school and masking and whatnot at that three o'clock till six o'clock period of our day has always been heightened attention needed with the children. And it's not possible for me just to pick them up and then head back into a task. Like it's just, it's gotta be tools down. And I am not a person who naturally can duck and weave, get into deep work and then stop for a couple hours and then do a little bit more. I'm the kind of person who gets up at 6am, pours a coffee and works through till 8pm and gets so much done when I'm in the zone. I'm not actually very good at switching tasks. That's why I time block. It's why I use Notion and I'm very type A. So I've had to retrain myself, I think in the last year and a half, two years to actually, since they've been at school, to do that. Yeah, I think in a situation where kids come into your world and they are of varying levels of need you simply have to readjust your expectations and, again, not be hard on yourself when you can't achieve X, Y, and Z because one of your child needs you. That day or in that moment. It's almost like we're talking about the evolution of business or the growth of business. Your business is like a child. And that, I've mentioned there's seasons in business, but there's also times where you're needing to shift, focus and do other things like. Been having a lot of conversations with designers, private coaching, group coaching, whatever, over the last six months specifically, the market is very different in 2024. I've noticed it in my business. We've all talked cause he lives, we've all talked about, every time you turn on the TV, you just hear don't spend money, do spend money, do this, don't do this. And yeah, I'm seeing a shift. I feel like it's turning back around. Inquiries coming in the girls that I'm working with are getting better quality inquiry and people are investing again But this year has seen quite a few decisions to pivot to change like where's what direction is my business going in? What should we do? Yeah, it's been a very dynamic time because there's been a lot of uncertainty economically and people have been tightening their belts and so it's yeah, it's Like you said, the pivot word, the whole COVID thing, it's been very much like that. We're doing this. Now we're doing this. And it just keeps moving and evolving in to the lay person fairly random sort of ways or ways that you don't expect. And I know, with the direction that your business has taken, I, if you asked me three years ago, I would have said, no, I don't think she's ever going to do that. Getting in the ground floor to be utilizing AI in, in how people run their businesses and how you run your own business that's been a big shift and I'm surprised more people aren't making that shift at this point, to be honest. It's interesting because I talked about before I guess I'll be talking about pivots and changes. Like I definitely realized at the end of last year that I was finding it really hard to get emerging designers to invest in themselves and I don't blame them. I didn't do it myself. Like I'm the first one to say, Hey, I didn't do a group coaching thing the first year of my business. So who am I to tell you, we do anything if we know what do they say, in retrospect or whatever looking back, if I knew what I know now, I would have run towards something like the framework and just absorbed everything and gotten the templates and not worried about it. But I get why people really struggle to be like, Ooh, I'm gonna have to pay you monthly and I can't see behind that. Cause it's like a sliding doors moment. I don't know what it looks like if I don't do it. And I've dropped the price in half and done a whole bunch of other stuff to try to pivot in that way. But I'm still very aware of that consistent challenge, which is an emerging designer doesn't always feel that they have the ability to put their money where their mouth is or get some skin in the game. early on because they're still struggling. So changed and split out the course so that I could also work more with established designers who I coach and do other things. But the AI thing has been probably the biggest shift in the last six months because whilst I've been rewriting it and not taking on as many new students, I've left space to upscale in a completely early adopter way. Into creating bots, like being able to meet someone and they're really struggling with something in the business. And I'm like, tell me what it is. I will make you a robot that does that thing for you. Any of my students I can do that for them. That's that sort of emerging technology is going to be a game changer in, in all industries. And you want me to build them all for you to mark essays. I want to understand the technology so that I not to mark size but just to be able to Simplify a lot of my own tasks because, another reason that teachers are leaving the profession is because It's spinning too many plates to be able to not be dropping them. It's exactly the same as entrepreneur and parenting really, isn't it? It's all these glass balls in the air and something's going to happen. Something's got to give and, teachers are burning out. So if we can, if I can find technology that helps me just do some of my admin stuff, my planning stuff that's going to make a huge difference. And I know. A lot of people are very apprehensive when it comes to AI. I am a huge fan of the Terminator saga. I won't put that on the fly. I've certainly got that in the back of my mind, but my thinking on it is a new technology. It's here to stay. It's happening. And so I can hide in the corner with my tinfoil hat, or I can embrace it and say, okay, how can I use this new, very powerful tool? But yeah, like I Think if you're in that position of being a bit apprehensive about a technology like AI, I think you just need to get in, experiment with it and see what it can do for you, how it can change things. And I've already been using it for like I said, admin type stuff and planning type stuff. And it's just. slashed the number of hours that I'm spending on those tasks. In, in the education, I think it's got a massive number of applications. I find it really interesting that you say that because I think that you've pinpointed what happened for me. So I listened to an episode of Stephen Bartlett's diary of a CEO and he interviewed Mo and I forget his last name. I'll have to put a link in the show notes to the episode. Anyway, he interviewed a former. Up high staff member of Google around about AI and what AI could do. And I think I even said to you should listen to this. It's like a two and a half hour podcast episode. And I put it down and I was terrified. It's Oh my God, we've left this cat out of the bag and we shouldn't have. And this is not a good thing. And I spiraled a bit. I started researching a lot. And I think that I was very much of that, get busy learning or get busy, head in the sand or what. I don't even know what I'm trying to say, but I was, I'm just trying to figure out if you went and built a bunker somewhere that I don't know about. No, I was frightened of it. So I needed to know more about it. And then the more I got to using it inside of my business, I have struggled for five of the six years of my business to just. Get four things off the top of my to do list and then they would roll over to tomorrow and then it would roll over again. And so I've felt like I've been chasing, and this is with all of my systems and all of my, very type a personality, as then I was still struggling because running your own business is being the Swiss army knife of your business. You are absolutely everything from it down to customer service. Yeah. And being able to harness AI in a way where, and it's not just write a caption for social media that says, unleash the potential of your, it's not that I don't actually use it for my social media when I'm doing social media. I write something like a text to a friend and then I might get it to edit the spelling or something like that, but I need it to brainstorm, and I never want to start with a blank page again because it just wastes so much time, and having the skeleton built out of things that I want to build for designers, and I want to do things that help them very quickly move on with their day and get back to designing, and that's where I found a passion, I think, just in being able to be like, I cannot believe I used to nominate a half a day to this task, and now it's automated. Yeah I think From what I've realized talking to other people about the emergence of AI is There's obviously those concerns around AI is going to take my job, and they're valid concerns Or there's the other one of oh, we're all going to end up dumb because AI is going to do our jobs for us But, I don't really see it that way. I am just finding ways to use it to get it to do menial things that take me a lot of time. I didn't want to do them. I don't want to do and that, that's how I see it. I see it as a tool within my toolbox for how to do my own job. It's a supplement, not a replacement. Yeah, and you're actually I know how to create a lesson plan. I've been doing it for years. It's not going to. Take away my ability to do that. If I'm using AI in order to construct a lesson plan or something still have to tell it everything I know, basically. And that's the thing with the AI support assistants that I've built for the framework. I've spent so much time and energy uploading transcripts of coaching calls and other things so that what I actually teach it in the background is It is my methodology. It's my strategies for social media. It's my coaching beliefs. It's my like, it's me and my ideas uploaded so that it will behave that way when you're chatting to it. And I think that's really important. Like it hasn't self created itself. Like it is me giving it all of the notes, the shortcuts, the ideas, the skill, what I actually need it to know behind the scenes and then it can do the task. That we all find bloody boring, like Pinterest captions. Like I taught it about SEO keywords, primary keywords, secondary keywords, what it needs to have, how, what its potential client is, who is it talking to? And then it can just spit them out really quickly. And that's what makes it work as a very powerful tool is that if you've got all that experience and knowledge in the back end, we've spent 20 years getting all of that. That's not something that it was like, search the internet and find out marketing strategy. Yeah. No, doesn't work quite that way, but and it's not one size fits all too. You gotta talk to it. Yeah, I, when you got me doing the testing on the bot, because I have to test all your stuff I was pretty amazed at just, it was exactly like having a conversation with a person. It wasn't like, your wife, wasn't exactly like me. What do they call them? The chatbots or whatever they are? Yeah. Yeah which are very limited in their capacity to deliver. They can only reply with the answer you've already given them. So they're almost like a flowchart. So you, a chatbot you set up to be like, DM me the word sales, and I'll send you the 10 sales commands or whatever. And you've got a PDF that's loaded in the backend. And then if someone came back and said, those were great, got any more? You'd be like, yeah. Thanks for your inquiry. There's just something about them that shuts down really quickly because they're really limited. But you're teaching open ended strategy in the back end of the ones that I've built in terms of, it's not, yeah, it has conversations with you and it can basically take on. And it asks for more information, clarification. It's trying to get you to narrow your objective down or narrow your audience down or whatever it is. Yeah. It just keeps pumping out questions at you until it knows exactly. What you're looking for. I do that it comes back with a summary. Do I understand this correctly? And I think that's something that I even do in my live coaching calls. I don't want to go off on one tangent if I'm not understanding their outcome properly and I will stop and it probably got that from the transcripts because I will sometimes stop and say, Hey, can I just confirm that we're on the same page here, that I'm understanding what it is that we're achieving and like I will make sure that we stay on path so we can get really good outcomes. Yeah. So that, and that's one of the things that makes it feel. almost human. Yeah. Is that it? It's not in a creepy way, not in a Scarlett Johansson fall in love with the bot kind of way, but it definitely, they, and I've built personalities into them too, which is, because you build the rules in the backend, they have personalities, they have names and they behave differently. All of them inside of the framework, they're supposed to be in the staff room, support assistants that help you get through the course faster without needing to use me. I'm one person, so when we have over 100 students in the framework, if all of them wanted to work on their unique value proposition tomorrow, I'm a bit busy for that, my brain would explode. I think it also provides people with a lot more freedom for how to utilize your services 4 o'clock in the morning when someone's Sitting there, sweating on something that needs to be delivered or completed. And, so it's still you, but it's not you. But it's still you. Maybe I'll put that on the flyer. Not confusing at all. All right. I'm going to wrap up with one last question. Where do you Oleander and Finch in the future? What, like you've been by my side for this entire journey, right? From signing up for design school. Any predictions? I'll get you back on in six months. Where do you think we'll be? I don't know, because I don't know. Your brain is quite an amazing thing that I'd probably be frightened to step inside of, but I feel like at some point you might get the itch of needing that creative outlet more and maybe finding a bit more of a balance between training and designing. I don't know, I would never have expected you to have gone in the direction that you've gone in, so it could be any other form of diversifying. I think, because we're in a world that is just changing so quickly economically it feels a little bit uncertain at the moment, technologically. It's moving very quickly. I think it, anything is possible at this point. So I wouldn't have any, I wouldn't even dare to make a prediction on where your brain is going to take the whole thing. Yeah, that's interesting. It's interesting that you bring up that creative side because it's one of the main reasons that I still always have one client on the go. I don't think I could give up. Oleander and Finch interior design in order to just teach and guide interior designers. Because as much as I love the business marketing skill training side and the education side, it is not enough to fulfill me entirely because I always wanted to be an interior designer and I love everything about working with my clients. I just love too many things. I want to do all the things and all the things at once. So I just Do the best that I can to fill all of those cups, I think when all of the kids are at school and you've got a little bit more time to work with that's I feel like that's when your brain's just going to explode and go right. We're doing these 80 things today Yeah That's what I predict. It's interesting, isn't it? Like I would not have been able to have a prediction if we were properly interviewed in the first year and then properly interviewed second year. Like I feel like this is a cute little experiment, like chatting to you at the beginning of the podcast. And then we are only five episodes away from the hundredth episode of this podcast which is a lot. It has been a lot. There's been a lot of interviews and there's going to be changes in the podcast too. There's always changes that you have to be able to yeah, ebb and flow with your business because what I could give six months ago, I haven't found as easy to give. and so on. So you do need to reassess and always family first, always health first, always like looking through the lens of burnout. Like where can I be really protective of this time, space and energy? Because I also trained designers to do the same. I don't want them to build businesses they can't sustain or that a hustle culture led like it's all, it has to be somewhere along the lines of By all means, work until your eyes bleed, if that's what you love, if that is truly something, some people that is their dopamine hit working like that. That's totally fine. Especially when you find an industry like interior design that you're obsessed with, but it won't be coming from instructions inside of the framework or expectations from me. And I think even if you are that person who is just the workaholic, that's fine, but that person is also going to have things that shift and change in their life, and, they just need to be ready to give themselves permission to step away and, shift priorities and move their time around. Yeah. I feel like that's, what's been going on this year for me as well. And I've, I also, I end almost every one of my framework calls with go do this, do that. And be gentle with yourselves, be kind with yourselves. And I, absolutely try to do that with myself as well. I can be really guilty of getting frustrated if I don't have a productive day. I only have four days to work this week and today's been a write off, today hasn't gone well. Just like you mentioned before, there are days that we intend to get a lot done and then we are, it takes the two of us and all of our focus onto just one of our children in order to get through the day. And that's quite jarring and yeah, it can make things a little bit more challenging. So I think, yeah, we just do need to be overarchingly aware of those seasons and pulling back when you need to. And expect the unexpected. And you can't predict the future. No. Beautiful. I'm going to wrap it up there because God knows we've probably got a million things to do as we mentioned, but thank you. Probably have another chat to you in six months and we can check in on where we're at and what's going on. I look forward to it. And I'll see you in the kitchen. Great. Bye. That wraps up another episode of Designing Success from Study to Studio. Thanks for lending me your ears. Remember, progress over perfection is the key. If you found value in today's episode, go ahead and hit subscribe or share it with a friend. Your feedback means so much to me and it helps me improve, but it also helps this podcast reach more emerging and evolving designers. For your daily dose of design business tips and to get a closer look at what goes on behind the scenes, follow at oleander underscore and underscore finch on Instagram. You'll find tons of resources available at www. oleanderandfinch. com to support you on your journey. Remember, this is your path, your vision, your future, and your business. Now let's get out there and start designing your success.