EP 93: I wasn’t happy (and nobody knew)
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Hey everybody, welcome back to the Acquire podcast where we talk about sales and marketing, lead generation, everything in between, and sometimes, like today, mental health. And if this is something that you struggle with, I will give you a trigger warning. I'm going to be talking about my own mental health journey, a little bit of my struggle, and how it affected my business.

and how I had to change things about myself, but also about the business in order to remain, stay and be able to grow. So if that is not your jam today, wait for next week's episode, or find another episode in the list that you might like. And if you are on this journey of mental health with me, or this is something that you've struggled with and listening to other people's

account helps you because that has helped me a great deal then I hope you stick around and again my name is Jenny Wright I'm a list build and lead generation strategist and I've been in business for myself since 2013 and throughout that entire time I've struggled with depression I

Actually, it even started before the business started in 2013. My depression started way, way back when I was a teenager, and it has come and gone at various different stages. The period of my life that I want to talk about on this particular episode is how it really, like basically from 2013, a little bit of that, but mostly about like more recently, I'm talking in the last 24 months.

because my business was going in a direction that wasn't making me happy anymore. I wasn't enjoying what I was doing anymore. And I think it's really important that if you're going to be your own boss, that you do something that makes you happy, enlightened, something that draws you to your computer every day if you work on a computer. And I wasn't getting that. I was starting to dread it. And I knew I needed to change it and I didn't know how, but I know it needed to happen. And eventually I figured out

what to do, how to do it. But there was a lot of twists and turns along the way. And it really struck, it struck a chord with me. So I'm glad you're here. And if you struggle as an entrepreneur, I will tell you that having been doing this for 13 years, or 12 years, that the majority of people that I meet as my clients, and also just people in the same field as me, and, you know, friends,

We're in these online businesses. We are entrepreneurs because we don't fit the mold of the day-to-day, the nine to five, the J-O-B. And I was in a job at J-O-B and I didn't fit it. And I find that a lot of people don't. But what that means for us is that we have a lot less structure around us. We have a lot less guardrails around us. And because for some of us, you know,

as introverts or even just people who are quiet people. Sitting on the couch and reading a book is a lot more interesting sometimes than getting on and networking or going to an event. And what I was finding, and this was about 24 months ago, that I was really struggling with finding my drive for the business. I was doing a lot of summits, which is great. I love summits. I still do.

But I was also finding that I wasn't getting joy out of some of the work that I was doing. And I was also building up this weird resentment around the work and somewhat directed towards some of the clients. That's not okay. And it wasn't their fault. They didn't really do anything wrong. What was going wrong with me was that I was feeling that I wasn't getting challenged enough anymore. That I know some it's in and out, you know, having produced hundreds of them.

But I was just feeling like I wasn't challenged. And I think as human beings, we constantly need that challenge to feel invigorated and enjoy things what we're doing. So but I let it go on for a long time. And if you've ever felt this, then you've probably also contemplated the same where you just keep going because you hope that this feeling will go away or you keep going out of obligation. And I had some of that too. I couldn't just up and change my business. My

my entire business and my entire business supports a lot of different things. It supports a family. It supports a lifestyle. It supports a lot of different things. And me making a change felt too big and too heady. Me making a change meant that other people might suffer because of what I'd already created, like the lifestyle that I've been able to create. And so I

I've always worried that if I stopped doing what I was doing in order to try and figure out what I wanted to do going forward, that I would lose clients or I wouldn't get new clients and that bills wouldn't get paid and so on. And I will tell you that this actually did come to fruition. It literally manifested itself, which sucks, right? I wasn't happy. And so about 24 months ago, I decided to try something new.

And I was told by people, you know what, you'd be really good at just being like a fractional CMO, or you'd be really good at getting into businesses and doing their marketing strategy, or you'd be really good at such and such. But it felt too daunting, quite honestly, because, again, people rely on me. And

So I kept accepting clients that I felt didn't really bring me the value that I needed out of the work that I was creating. I wasn't doing work that was really challenging me. I felt like an outsider in my own industry because I wasn't going to all these really cool and swanky events here in Toronto and then posting them all over social media. And no shade to anybody who is able to do that. That is just not my cup of tea.

I don't love doing that. I love going to certain events and there's certain people who I support and I will go to their events 100%, but I sometimes feel like an outsider in my own industry, which really sucks. And then I was really noticing these signs of depression coming back in and hitting me hard. I knew I had to do something. I absolutely couldn't keep going the same way. Clients didn't deserve it. I didn't deserve it. The business didn't deserve it. And I knew if I kept going this way,

something would have to give. And let me tell you, it wasn't going to be the business because again, it supports people. And I can't, I mean, I have a team. If I screw up, I have a team of six people who would stop getting paid and I cannot do that to them. And I can't do it to my family and I can't do it to the lifestyle that I've built, all these things. Anyways, losing enthusiasm for what you do sucks. I had to figure it out and I started reading some books, right? I really started looking at my...

abilities, what I wanted to do, podcast. I mean, I listen to a lot of podcasts. So shout out to a lot of people that I was listening to in order to kind of figure out where I should be, right? So the first things I started doing was like auditing my offers and my clients. What was working? What was making me upset? What was making or triggering the depression or the symptoms of depression to come on and

what was bringing me any kind of joy, how could I accept or continue to grow as an introvert or a ambivert with these tendencies and preferences of not engaging too, too much with people because I find it exhausting? How could I weave that into my business in a way that still allowed me to connect with people

And how could I acknowledge that my mental health was struggling, that I felt isolated, that I felt depression creeping in? There were days where I just honestly did not want to get dressed, sometimes even wash my hair. Those are clear symptoms of depression for me because I've gone through it before. What I realized after some deep thinking is I could redefine my business to match my

how I was feeling inside as opposed to how I was presenting to the world. Not who I thought I had to be and this felt like a breakthrough. And it wasn't an aha, like I just ta-da and I figured it out. It was a slow roll. It was a really slow roll. Some of you know that I swim every morning and so when I swim I can tune everything out. I can just focus on

repeated laps and i mean like you know 160 laps or something and during those you know during that time i just focus on nothing and everything and i can just think jeremy you know what that's like so swimming every morning allowed me to over time come up with this realization that i could redefine my business that i could support my goals that i could you know um

really work on just being who I really wanted to be. And oddly, as soon as I had that acceptance of that moment, a whole bunch of things changed. One, I felt like I wasn't as upset. I wasn't as unmotivated. I started feeling a little bit of motivation. Scary motivation because if you've ever done this and you're like, okay, I've been going down this highway for years and now I want to get off at...

an interpass or off-ramp, whatever you guys call it, and then get on a different highway. Scary as all get out, but I knew that I needed to figure this out. And so that was what I did. I started setting some boundaries for myself and raising my own standards internally before I did any external visual, like anybody could see this. So I was really internally setting boundaries on how I would

present myself to clients, how I would interact with people, how I would present my content, everything. And I also completely revamped my onboarding process because I'm a yes person. I'm a very yes ma'am, no ma'am, no sir, I'll help you out, whatever you need. Can't do that. Embracing fractional CMO work was the thing that made me happy. It was really starting to leverage my strengths

It allowed me to dive into just being a strategic marketer, high level, deep, fun work, always changing, constantly, you know, problem solving. Anytime where my brain has to sit and problem solve just is fun for me. So embracing a new way, like, I mean, let me put it to you this way. Summits are very much like they follow a cadence. You know exactly how they're going to go.

And I love that. But at the same time, being a fractional CMO in other people's businesses pulls on a lot of different levers for me and allows me to be like, okay, I got to put my so-and-so client brain on, right? And if I do that, I've got to be able to do this. If I put this hat on for this client, I've got to think about their problems. And then midway during the day, I'm going to switch gears. I'm going to put the hat on for the other client and figure out their problems and

And then switch back. Oh, and then I got to work on my own business. And I know that seems busy, but I like it. So it was giving me a lot of joy to start working that way, which was great. And I started creating selective summit work. I love doing summits. I'll never stop doing them probably. And so I was just keeping one foot in the summit world without it being my entire identity, which I felt good.

and allowed me just to be a little bit more selective. I picked only the summits that I genuinely felt excited about, that didn't drain me. And it was a realization that I don't have to choose one lane, but I could build the business to fit my life and not the other way around, which felt like how it had been. It felt more like a weighted vest on me than a joyful and light experience.

If you've stuck around this long and you're like, oh, you know what? I'm feeling the same. I struggle with not really loving what I'm doing or I have my own mental health issues. And whatever that might be, I hope that you get whatever support and that you find your way through. I really do. It's a terrible, terrible thing. Depression is absolutely terrible.

And just to me is so invasive. And it's so gosh, it just takes over every corner. But as I've been trying to change things, I've seen that the darkness recedes. It's not completely gone, but it recedes and allows me the joy again, right? Because feeling bored or burnt out

doesn't mean that I'm a failure. It's just a sign that I'm ready for something new and I really had to reframe that. So if you're thinking about all this, I want you to look and I want you to audit your feelings with complete honesty. Are you just bored or are you burnt out? Are you both? Is it because you're working too much or is it because you've outgrown what you're doing? Evaluate how your work builds, creates excitement or is it just an obligation?

And then give yourself the permission to pivot, to try something new without guilt and see how that works for you. Always, always, I will say, protect your mental health and energy. The importance of boundaries, I can't even specify how important that is. Clarity in your business and who you want to work with. Alignment to what you want to do.

That's how you create long term sustainability, you know, and in five or six years, maybe this changes again. Maybe I want to do different work. I don't know. But right now, I'm freaking happy. And I haven't been able to say that for years. So I'm really, really happy about that.

One of the things that really brought me a lot of joy was outsourcing and delegating draining tasks that I just, I should not be doing. And that was really hard for me. And at the time, I was getting some advice which was like, hey, you know what? Save money, don't hire a team. And I didn't listen to that advice. I hired a team and it helped immensely. Prioritize your mental health, whatever that looks like for you. Therapy, downtime, both.

things that you love, hiking, swimming, whatever it is. Prioritize your mental health. Don't let people invade your time. If you could see my calendar now, it is bookended at the beginning and the end of each day with like blocked out, oh, oh, oh time where nobody can book appointments. Nobody can book them. It'll just auto decline because in the mornings I'm swimming.

Or I'm hiking or I'm walking or I'm doing some sort of physical activity every single morning from like 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. I do not go to the desk before 9 a.m. anymore. I used to be at the desk at 7 a.m. I don't do that anymore. And then any time after 6, sometimes even 5, depending on the day, I don't do any more calls. None. And it'll just completely not accept an appointment.

Because protecting my energy isn't optional anymore. It's foundational to how I run the business. And having learned that, by the way, super hard skill for me to have gotten because not so smart over here sometimes, my business was transformed. And my clients respect it. I felt good about it. I didn't feel so drained. Really, really good. So if you're feeling that burnt or, you know, that burnt out, that bored feeling, the feeling stuck, the depression creeping in on the sides,

100% pay attention to these markers. They're telling you something bigger. They're informing you that something needs to change. And once you learn what that is, you're going to feel better. I hope. I'm not saying that everything I do is 100% going to work for you, but I really hope that it does. So to that end, a shorter episode today, but an honest one, one that I was a little nervous about recording, but I really hope that you like it.

And so if you've been here so long, thank you. I'm so glad you're here. Check out some of the other episodes. I'm getting back into tactical stuff. Don't worry if you like the tactical episodes. They're still here. I will bring one up next week, actually, so you can get into that. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to you all soon. Take care. ♪