Building a business that plays to your strengths with HANNAH MILLER
What’s this episode about?
I asked Hannah to be on the podcast because I spent a day with her back in April and the work we did on my strengths and how they influence the way I run my business has had a big impact on decisions I've made since, including stopping my successful group programme.
Hannah is a 'Strengths based coach' and uses the Clifton Strengths test to inform the way she works with clients. You don't need to have done (or even heard of!) the test to get a lot from the episode.
In this episode we cover:
What is the Clifton Strengths test and why is it different to other tests?
How your strengths can have a 'shadow side' and the impact this can have
Examples from our own profiles, including the reasons I restarted the podcast, why I 'failed' at having a VA for so long and how Hannah's people pleasing was the key to consistency.
How understanding my strengths has shaped recent decisions I've made to grow my business
The impact of not using your strengths on your business and your health.
INTRODUCING… HANNAH MILLER
Hannah Miller is a proud teacher by trade and she's been involved in leading three start-ups, including her current business. She is what you call a “Strengths-Based Coach” which is NOTHING to do with weightlifting and everything to do with personality and preferences. She has been trained to give her clients the tools to really get to know themselves, what they do best, what their contribution is, essentially, what their STRENGTHS are so that they are armed to make the right decisions and build a life that works for them.
If you want to find out more about Hannah, the best places are her:
Website: hellosidekick.co
Insta link: @hellohannahmiller
Links & resources mentioned in the episode:
'Introduction to strengths' course: https://courses.hellosidekick.co/strengths-intro
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Read the transcript:
NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool. Please forgive any typos or errors.
LHM 008: Hannah Miller
===
[00:00:00] hello, and welcome to Lion Hearted Marketing. This is a podcast for bold businesses who are ready to go from a slightly scattergun marketing approach to connecting everything they're doing to create joyful, repeatable customer journeys, that build connection and consistently convert new clients. That's called a funnel. If you fancy.
If you have that nagging feeling, you should have more of a grasp on your marketing, more of a plan, more of a system to support your pretty successful business. You're in the right place. This isn't about trying lows and new strategies. It's about taking what you've got and making the most of it.
I'm Sophie your host. Self-confessed tea superfan marketing strategist and funnels or joyful journeys, as I like to call them, demystifier. Join me every Tuesday for my Lion hearted approach to marketing. To help you navigate those big moves, stay focused on your goals and ultimately take your business to the next level.
Let's jump in to today's episode.
Sophie: Hello and welcome to the Lionhearted Marketing [00:01:00] Podcast. So today I'm here with my guest, Hannah Miller from Hello Sidekick. She is a proud teacher by trade and has been involved in leading three startups, including her current business. She's what you'd call a strengths based coach, which is nothing to do with weightlifting and everything to do with personality and preferences.
She's been trained to give her clients the tools they really need to get to know themselves. What they do best and what their contribution is essentially what their strengths are. So they are armed to make the right decision and build a life that works for them. She is also a fellow list writer and tea drinker.
Hannah, welcome to the podcast.
Hannah: Hi Sophie, great to be with you. Thanks for
having me.
Sophie: I am so excited to have you here. So just for the listeners, a little bit of. Background to this episode. Back in April, I went on a a full day of exploring my strengths with Hannah and also Amanda Perry, who is an ADHD coach and business owner. For those who don't know, I was diagnosed with ADHD back in August, [00:02:00] 2022.
And over the past year, I've, I've really been exploring what impact it has on me, how I run my business and really how I can. Optimize the amazing strengths that I have often people talk about like the insane amount I can get done in the day, but also like mitigate and like understand and build in the difficulties that I have as well.
So what drew me to the day before I went was that we completed a Clifton strength test. Now. I love a personality quiz. I have taken a lot over the years, all the different insights, the Enneagram ones, like, I love them. But actually, I have found it really hard to find one that can really capture my split personality, if you like.
Someone that loves routine, but also finds it incredibly suffocating. And who likes to be organized, but also is slightly chaotic. So I did the Clifton strength test and got it back. I was like, oh my gosh, this is, I've never found one that is [00:03:00] quite so spot on. And I think part of that is because of the depth of the insight, but also because it focuses not only on the strengths you have, but the, the shadow side of those strengths as well.
Where if you're going too all in on something what can also come up for you as well, but also the combination of different strengths. The strengths are ordered, and even if you have the same top 10, the likelihood is you're going to have some really different results because of the way they integrate with each other.
So that is what we're going to be talking about in this podcast. We're going to be talking about how to Start to understand your strengths, how they can impact your business. What might be coming from those that you might not be realizing and actually how you can start working towards, you know, building a business that actually is based on your strengths.
So Hannah, before we jump into all of that great stuff, tell us a little bit more about yourself.
Hannah: Okay, so you said already I'm a teacher by trade, but also was involved in advertising and marketing. Before that, I've been involved in charity startup and business startup and [00:04:00] kind of currently I'm trying to live and work out my own purpose whilst helping other people discover theirs. I loved my personal purposes, whatever environment I'm in.
I love to see people grow and develop in whether their work or their private lives, whatever that might be. So that's kind of me in terms of my day to day sense of purpose. I live and work from Birmingham. You can maybe hear that in my voice and in my accent. It's my hometown. I'm married to my husband, Sam.
We were childhood sweethearts. So we've been married now for 24 years. And we've got three sons. Who are 20, 17 and 14, who all play rugby and keep me very busy with driving to rugby, watching rugby and all the rest of it. And I have a lovely dog as well,
who is my only female companion in the house.
Sophie: oh my goodness, well you're like the flip of my house because we've got two girls, so my poor husband feels like he's the only, the only man in the house. And we've actually been together, it was actually our 20 year anniversary at the
Hannah: Oh, look at that. We're with the [00:05:00] young, the young love in the
Sophie: I'm so much long term love here.
I know once, yeah, once we were together, that was it really. So, okay, I'm very, very excited to have you here. So, we're going to be talking I think about your personal kind of profile, mine as well, and how that kind of plays into the way we've built our own businesses and the different ways that's impacted in us growing our businesses as well. So just to start off, do you want to just give us a little bit of an overview of the CliftonStrengths test and, you know, the type of, what strengths are we talking about
Hannah: Sure. Because for people who haven't heard of it, it's like, what does this even mean? So let me take us back a moment and try and give a quick overview of what CliftonStrengths is. It's the tool that I am qualified to use within my organization. And it comes from a large company called Gallup, who are data analysts. They look at human behavior, especially to do with how we like to work and live and lead our lives. And the CliftonStrengths assessment, which Sophie has taken, and I've taken the news, has been taken by 30 million [00:06:00] people. So this is a big, global, you know, rigorous approach to understanding ourselves. And what it's looking for when you take the assessment and why it's a bit different to others is it's looking for your natural preferences. And it's not a binary activity, so where so many of these personality profiles are saying you're this or that, actually we can be both. So
every single one of that, I think it's 140 questions, every single one has not got opposites in there that you're trying to ascertain. They are completely different things.
There are no right or wrong answers. It's also trying to weedle out social preference where sometimes we, we think we know what we should say. There are no right or wrong answers. So when you've been through this preference mining questionnaire, you're then given this very detailed report where you are given your rank of your strengths.
So you get your number one strength, your number two strength, right down to number 34. There are 34 altogether. And what we very much encourage [00:07:00] people to think about is that top end of their report. These are the strengths you have. These are your preferences. These are your clues to you at your best. And they're also your clues to you at your worst potentially as well. But how can we start to get more and more accurate and specific about understanding what we do well, and then begin to live lives or lead businesses that really suit and play to those strengths? So the report gives us so much more detail on that, but the principle behind it is we want to focus on what we should be leaning into, who we are best, and how to refine that so it works for our good.
Sophie: Yeah, I love that. And it's so interesting what you said there about You know, not picking answers that we think we should pick. I know a lot of the other ones, you know, they often ask questions like, you know, if you're in this situation, how would you react or respond? And there's a real temptation, it's probably why the other ones I filled in I haven't been completely accurate, because there's like a real temptation to be like, oh, well, I wouldn't...
I'd like to perceive [00:08:00] myself to be that way, but the reality is it probably would be slightly different. So yeah, but it was hard doing the test because you're sometimes put, you know, given two answers that either neither of them you would do, or both of them you feel quite strongly about. So it really challenges you, I think, to dig into.
like your real values and kind of
Hannah: that's right.
Sophie: strengths. So talk to me a little bit about before we kind of then delve into some of the strengths, this shadow side that I talked about earlier. What's the, because surely a strength is a strength.
Hannah: So there's a quote that I don't know who said it actually, and I wish it was me, but somebody once said, your strengths are your weaknesses. And I think that's so profound and so true. We're often thinking about the things that we aren't or the things that we don't do so well, but really those aren't our major obstacles because actually we can find ways around that.
We can find other people, we can automate, et cetera, and so on to get rid of those things. But our strengths are what we live and breathe every day, [00:09:00] our preferences, our personality is what we experienced and then what everybody else experiences. So when I know what those preferences are, when I know what my talents are. My lifelong job is to try and have those so that they are, and Sophie, you will have heard me say this on the day when we were together. They need to be working for your good and working for the good of people around you. And when you don't feel that, when they aren't exhibited in your life in that way, they're not really operating as a strength at that time.
They're a potential talent in your life, but perhaps they're driving you rather than you driving it. Perhaps it's leading the way or it's... The volumes turned up a bit too high on it. And so in every situation, this particular preference seems to win the day and, and doesn't do you any good. And I'm sure as we get into your report, we'll come up, we'll discuss a couple of those specific examples.
But if you're, for example, if you are somebody who's quite emotional and you feel emotion, you're quite intuitive, you, you are, you feel the range of emotions and you can [00:10:00] feel that for others as well. That's a real strength. It means that you can connect quickly. It means you Pick up on those hidden cues, but sometimes when you have that strength, you feel the weight of other people's emotions, which can then become really exhausting. And you don't know how to, to, to kind of separate that off or close the cycle on that. Or perhaps other people might experience a great deal of emotional behavior from you because you aren't learning when it's inappropriate to, to let all of that out. That's a strength right there in terms of being somebody who's naturally empathetic and naturally intuitive, but when the volumes turned up too high and it's deregulated to use that, that language that we'll have all heard of, it spills out in a way that's not for our good. But what we've got to then learn to do is to reconcile. Well, I can't become a non emotional person. That's not the answer. The answer is to grow, refine, to understand, take responsibility for this strength in my life so that I can confidently say in 10 years [00:11:00] time. That strength is in a much healthier place than it was ten years previous, and so on and so forth.
Sophie: Yeah, I think that's so, so interesting. I actually think a lot of people relate to that as, you know, a strength, but Also, what I got a lot out of on the day when we were talking is how you can use your other strengths to like in harmony, isn't it? So one of the problems that came up a lot.
These were all people in the room were either had their own business or in senior leadership and something that came up quite a lot was maybe like I struggle to be consistent or like I really want to grow my business and be on social media. Or, you know, every, all the time and grow my business. However, I just can't seem to be consistent.
It's like, okay, but actually you have quite strong. I think it was like responsibility drive or something. So how can you reframe it to, I've got to be on social media to, I'm making a commitment to myself that I'm going to do this and using that strength, you'll probably explain it much better than me, but that's kind of what I took away from it is that actually I could really lean into the fact that social media drains me, I don't want to be on it.
That's my. [00:12:00] What I'm gonna take from it, but actually how can I use my other strengths to to help me with
Hannah: Yeah, it's a really good example. I often talk about when there's something that we find difficult, and we need to get around it, we need to look at our strengths to find the most appropriate workaround. And you've just given a really good example. If somebody, if I was working with someone with a small, with a business and they're saying, I need to do this, but my strengths don't really play to that. I would be looking at their strengths with them to come up with an action plan that suits their personality. For me personally, my strengths to use me as an example with that very example in
mind, showing it regularly. A few years ago, I made a decision that I wanted to, I wanted to start to write an email newsletter. It was probably five years ago now. But I am not a consistent person, Sophie. Those are not my strengths at all. I'm not disciplined. I'm not regular. I'm not that good at routine. And yes, I hope this is encouraging to your listeners. And yeah, I have, I have put a blog email newsletter out now [00:13:00] every Wednesday for about five years without fail. And the reason I've been able to do something that does not play to my strengths is that I decided I would use my strengths and I am a terrible people pleaser.
Like, I do care what people think and I want to do things that, that please others. So the minute I put it out there and I said publicly, I'm going to send this every week, my inbuilt drive to not let anybody down took over.
Sophie: yeah,
Hannah: have just said to myself, I'm going to start blogging every Wednesday, I would have probably lasted three weeks, four maximum, and it would have just stopped. But the fact I put a commitment out there on my website, on my Instagram and so on, I said, this will happen every Wednesday morning. I tricked myself into consistency.
So that's not the solution for everybody, but look, everyone will have their own. You know, you've got to look at what your strengths are and think, how do I find the motivation from my preferences to do the hard thing that maybe [00:14:00] doesn't come naturally to me?
Sophie: yeah, absolutely. I mean, my consistency is way down at 28 out of 34, so I can fully empathize with that. And what was really interesting like this was when we were on the day, that this was a room full of people with ADHD, but also all very successful in their personal lives. But our profiles were surprisingly similar.
You know, in terms of our key core strengths and then the areas that tended to come lower on our lists as well. And I just think it shows that despite, you know, so many challenges aren't there, but it doesn't necessarily have to hold you back and often we find ways around it naturally. One of the things that I, that came up a lot for me was that I am strategic.
I have command in my top 10 as well,
Hannah: which is very rare. Very rare.
Sophie: I'm so rare, guys.
I have Learner, so I like to learn things. I basically am very good at [00:15:00] learning new things. Activator is my number one strength, which is like getting things out there. But I also really like to be in control of it.
The how well it's done. So what I have found are that they're all massive strengths and it's helped me build businesses and launch things really quickly and have, you know, do things like rebrand my entire business, you know, in a couple of months . But the trouble is. That I find it incredibly hard to get support.
And I've had a couple, I've talked about this before, I've had a couple of like false starts with VAs and it's absolutely nothing to do with them. And absolutely everything to do with me because I am such a quick learner and. I am really competent and capable in quite a large number of areas, but that doesn't mean that I should be doing all of them.
But what it does mean is that when I try and give it over to someone else, I'm like, well, they're not as quick as me and I may as well just do it myself and it'll probably be better if I do it myself. [00:16:00] And do you know what? I'll probably just learn this new software and just, just do that bit and like do something different anyway.
And what I found really helpful on the day, and we were talking about this before, is thinking about... Like me and my strengths as a star and so the different points are almost my strengths And then actually what I'm looking for is people to fill in the gaps to create a circle Whereas I think what I was looking for before was For me to be a circle and almost to someone else be like a circle within my circle and there was too much overlap and I wasn't really clear about what I wanted them to do and I wasn't really ready to hand anything over.
And it's only now, over the, since I did the day and the last few months, I've just realized that what I need for my business, some of it is stuff I have to do and I need to get consistent, like writing my emails, other things. I need to outsource, but really specifically. So I need people who are specialists in what they do
so that I can have full confidence.
Like I'd record the podcast and then [00:17:00] I have a specific podcast VA that does all the podcast stuff afterwards for me. Because what I was expecting someone else to be was a really competent generalist across so many things that I wasn't really feeling. Supported in any of them or confident in any of them, I should say.
So yeah, that's how I'm kind of moving my business forward, I guess.
Hannah: I think those are some really good examples. And again, like looking at your strengths, there'll be a real speed to the way you work and effectiveness with that maximizer. I, I wanna be good at what I do and I wanna work with excellence. And so that's a recipe, that's a potential challenge for delegating, letting others go.
And I think playing to that idea of expertise is a really good one. You've got learner at number seven, which means you're gonna experie, you're gonna appreciate and highly value.
Sophie: Mm.
Hannah: So I think the more you find people that are, like you say, excellent at certain things where you can actually say, this is your thing.
You do it really well. I can hand that to you and trust your expertise. I [00:18:00] think that's going to help you with the letting go process a bit more to individuals that you know are excellent in these things, because actually you're probably a pretty highly competent generalist in lots
of things. And, and another generalist will just feel like a, you know, And they're never going to know your business like you, so they're never going to win.
Whereas actually somebody who knows about certain niche things, they could actually be worth you then delegating to. I think the other thing for somebody perhaps in the, who is going to come alongside you, perhaps in, in a more generalist way, I'm looking at the fact you've got developer and futuristic at 12 and 13.
And if you could almost again, like play to that particularly and think, right, this is somebody who I'm thinking about the future and right now they aren't going to be ready. But six months from now, where will they be? And if I give them the development that they need. I could play the long game with them, but most of your strengths that come just above those strengths are very much more about the, you know, let's get this done now to a high [00:19:00] standard quickly.
And your brain is going to be quick and quick to act. I think your point around that. Let me be what I do best is a really good one. And anybody who's listening, my advice would be to really learn and understand what is mission critical to be you. Even if you're excellent at other things, like you could be excellent.
your Excel spreadsheets because you happen to be really good at it. But does it need, does that need to be you? And, and if it doesn't, those are the things to, to delegate, to pass on the parts that you do that build your business need to stay with you. And the other stuff we've got to find ways around that.
And that's quite a, a tricky thing to do and involves having some courage and confidence in the first place to actually, to let it go.
Sophie: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's really hard. I think when we were talking about like a lot of my listeners will be around the sort of 5k a month mark and looking to scale to, to closer to 10k. And I was saying that's quite a tricky point because up to 5k, you probably can [00:20:00] manage a reasonable amount yourself.
You might have a little bit of support, but once you get to that point where you're really ready to scale and invest in ads, get more automation in place, you know, maybe build a small team. And actually become step into more of that CEO. Mindset rather than this is me in my business. It kind of can, I've found anyway, with me and with clients and with friends, it can kind of exacerbate these strengths slash shadow sides.
Can't it? Because it can really like burnout is something I see quite a lot around that mark where we're trying to do all the things. And actually, if we just carry on doing what we've always done. It can really, it's the, you know, that risk of burnout, that risk of dropping balls, like imposter syndrome coming up so high as we try and start to play a bit bigger, be a bit more visible, can really derail you, can't it?
If you're not conscious of it.
Hannah: Oh, gosh, totally. And I've really emphasized with the point you're making there both personally and through [00:21:00] people I've worked with as well. And I look back at the time. I said this to you I think about my own story of thinking about expansion. And I'd kind of hit a point like you're talking about where this is as far as I can go on my own. And we're doing nicely. Things are going along nicely. But I'm not going to be able to take this to the next level unless I get help because I am doing all the things like you've just said and there is no bandwidth left. And so again, many of your listeners, they'll be juggling other responsibilities like family.
For me, I've got my, you know, my children, I've got elderly parents. It's another responsibility. There is no more bandwidth. And the problem then is we just dig in a bit more, I'm going to be able to do this on my own. And I think what I reflected on is it took me quite a while to take the business, business advice that I was being given, which was, you need to get rid of everything that doesn't need to be you, and you need to take someone on. And I had to take some time to think about what was it that I was particularly frightened of? What was it that was... [00:22:00] the difficulty about my strengths that was being played into there. And I'm happy to share my example. And I know as people are listening that they'll have different reasons. I think for me, there was, there was a couple of things around obviously control and letting that go to someone else and thinking this is going to just make you busier. But for me, one of my strengths is belief. And belief is about being very value driven and and what I do being really important for me and for my family. And I think what I realized as I reflected on it was that any money that was in the business that I was going to be investing in another person, I saw in my silly head, I can, I'm willing to admit this is silly, but I'm being honest. I saw it in my head that I was taking that away. from my children, like potentially when they needed it, right? Rather than letting it in my head. It was like, right, this is taking away from them and I'm risking it. Whereas had I worked for another company, my emotional attachment to that money would have been completely different.
And I would have said, well, it's obvious we need to take on another [00:23:00] member of team. And once I reconciled that my brain was thinking like that because of a value I was able to work around it. I was able to, to, to actually reframe it, to use that language very, very differently, but for anyone who's listening to this podcast, you're going to have your own reasons as to why you're struggling with that.
What's that next step? What are the fears? What's the cost? I would encourage you to take some time to really work out what it that you're frightened of? What is it that's holding you back? And to begin to mitigate and plan for that because there are ways around it. And, you know, it was the best decision I could have made.
And I reflect back now and think we've had quite significant growth since that time. Since involving others.
Sophie: That's so, so interesting because well, you know, obviously my my core job is Facebook ads. And often people say to me, Oh, if I invest in Facebook ads, then it's money. I'm not going to be able to spend on a family holiday or, [00:24:00] you know, especially in the early end when you're, like you say, it's that first member of staff.
It's that first time you're jumping into Facebook ads. And actually what I have worked with a lot of clients on is how can we make you feel safe about this? How can we make you see? Like you, you know, we talk things about things like profit first and a marketing budget and how can we reframe this money because it's going to help you make more money.
It's going to help you reach more clients, going to help you get more income, but I totally understand, especially in those first few years, you're building your business. Every bit of money you come in is so, is so important, isn't it? And the idea of spending on something that you don't know that you're definitely going to get a return on or a clear return on immediately.
It's a bit like taking on new team members, isn't it? Like you, you want to invest in them and you know, it's going to free you up to do more, you know, critical stuff and get more clients in, but the reality is it's not going to happen like the day after, like it's going to take time.
Hannah: Hmm.
Sophie: And the same thing with Facebook ads as well.
You're going to have to spend the money before you start to see the benefit. It's so [00:25:00] tricky, isn't it? Something else that comes up quite a lot, I think at this point is burnout. And I mean, we've talked about like automation and getting team members on, but is there fundamentally something about.
I don't know, a lot of us build our businesses based on what we should do, so open a membership do a podcast, or do YouTube videos, or you should be on Instagram. Is there something in your strengths that can guide you towards, like, what's going to be the best way to build your business that's going to be most, I don't know, the path of least resistance, I guess?
Hannah: Yeah. Yeah. That whole question about burnout is really, really good and fundamental. I think there's a couple of things that can lead to burnout, which knowing our strengths can really help us with. So first of all, one of the reasons we can head towards burnout is because , we're allowing our strengths to go a bit. haywire.
So like I said before, that idea of our strengths are totally over being overplayed, and we don't know how to turn them off. I mentioned empathy already, but you could pick another strength like responsibility or achiever, [00:26:00] or focus, where you just know that you want to get these things done, but you don't have to stop yourself from doing
stuff. Or if for me, I've got strategic, that's one of my strengths, I think Sophie, you have as well.
Sophie: I was just
Hannah: Yes, you have.
Sophie: focus, strategic, empathy are all in my top five. So,
Hannah: go. Good examples for you. So, strategic and learning, one of the challenges there can be is, I would find it very difficult to turn my brain off, and I don't like that all the time because I want to be able to just be at peace without having to think, think, think, think, think. And yet I know I have to recognize that's part of me and it's who I am, but I've got to do things to keep myself well so that that doesn't lead my life all the time.
So when people get to know their strengths, you start to spot what these strengths can look like when they're haywire. So that's one way to burn out. Another route to burnout is doing things that bring you no joy or very little joy and do not play to your strengths. Some of [00:27:00] the hardest days at work are when I'm doing things that are not really my strengths to do. I've had to recently put together a really detailed proposal and it was necessary and it had to be me, about like 7, 000 words. It was really hard, like, Very exhausting for me because it's not my strengths to do and it involved a great deal of self discipline to get that done. It wasn't a day where at the end of it, I felt energized, whereas other busy days can feel extremely energizing and I would encourage anyone listening to pay attention to the days that energize you as opposed to the days where you think I'm just having to get through today. And what we want to do is to build businesses that allow us to do more of that and. Over the years, with myself, with my husband, with my team, I've reflected on decisions I've made that were made because I thought I should, and I've thought, I'm not really enjoying doing this, it doesn't feel like me, or it feels a bit icky, or it feels a bit compromising, and the more you've got that learning, the more you've got that intel, [00:28:00] you can have confidence around what you should be saying yes to, and think, you Actually, how can I build a business that feels like it has real integrity around who I am and what I'm going to love doing, not just what's going to make some money, both can really work. So if you don't enjoy communicating don't start a podcast.
If you, if you don't enjoy doing the same thing every month. Don't do a membership. You know, you've got to think about what's going to play to your strengths because you can't serve your customers well in the long run if it doesn't feel authentically who you are.
So that's another route to burnout. And some of the, I've worked with a lot of individuals who have self selected to work with me because they want to make a change in their life. They want to transition into something else and they are experiencing. burnout for one of those two reasons that they have been overplaying their strengths or they're not using their strengths at all or enough.
Sophie: Yeah. And I think that is something it's so easy, isn't it? [00:29:00] Just to follow a someone who's really successful and the route they've taken, you know, like, Oh, okay. They opened a membership and then they ran ads to it and then they've got a webinar and you know, I'm just going to do exactly what they've done.
And the reality is that can feel very different. Can't it? I've been round this a few times, but I struggle with things that are long term commitments, which sounds ridiculous, but I like, I like projects that are three months that have an end stamp on them. So it's like, okay, we're going to work together for three months.
For me, that is a much more exciting energizing project than something that's open plan, like that's open ended Even though I love doing the work when I'm doing it, there's something for me about that like always being required or never knowing when it's going to stop. And just in terms of managing my energy, I just find that quite difficult.
Which is why I've moved a lot more towards the training and the project work over the years and the ongoing like client management and, and membership and courses has like Hmm.[00:30:00]
Hannah: No, I can see that. I can see that. And again, like you and I both got Activator and Activators do much prefer the beginning of things. So therefore, something that has no beginning again because you've done the beginning and now it's going to just maintain for X number of months, years or whatever. Is not going to be as exciting or energizing.
And that's so important to pay attention to because you're going to have the energy to launch and relaunch. And like you've just said, you've rebranded so quickly and on your own. We've done some similar things here where we've gone, right, let's get this done. We can do it in a month and we've turned it around because there is that kind of sprint mentality that comes with, with the strength you've got, Sophie.
By
the, way, I love the I love the new branding. I think it
Sophie: Oh, thank you. I mean, I said I did it on my own. I mean, I had a graphic designer and people helped me with the website, but in terms of the, yeah, it was so much of it was just me in it and it, and I think for me, it had to be me, like it was that critical stuff, like the re the wording, the values, like I [00:31:00] really wanted to bring my voice to it, but it was an insane amount of work on top of what I was already doing.
And interestingly, I was really. On the fence about whether to bring the podcast back or not. So I had the podcast before, finished in February. And even with that, I found it you know, it's an ongoing consistency thing. You know, every week I have committed to getting a podcast out and I'm not the best at getting ahead of it.
I am with guests, but not so much my solo episodes. So often before, like the podcast would go out on a Monday morning and I would be recording it on a Sunday night. Now that is part of my ADHD because I like a deadline. I like to go right to the wire, but also it does cause stress. And, you know, I didn't really want to be recording a podcast on a Sunday night.
However, when I had our day so many of my strengths feed into me using my voice and speaking, and like one, something that's on my list for 2024 is to do more speaking and part of the rebrand actually [00:32:00] was to really make sure that my message and what I wanted to speaking. be speaking about is really, really clear so that I can go on and do more speaking.
I think, is it, is it communicates? I think it's, it's, I think the fact that it came up in quite a few of my descriptions
Hannah: of your strengths have that influence and quality to them, which will be about using your voice, having impact and influence. And so I think it's a way of finding. Making sure that the podcast keeps feeling fresh for you because actually I do think it's worth, it's the right thing to be doing for that idea of bringing attention to important stories and important messages and, and, and letting that be heard. The trick there is to make sure it just feels like relaunches so that it doesn't feel like you're in that, you know, maintenance mode. That will be the way to make sure you keep it feeling alive for you. And like the more guests you get, I think the more it will feel that way.
Sophie: Yeah, absolutely. And I'm sort of playing at the moment with, do I, you know, do I do seasons? How long are the seasons? Actually, is it for me [00:33:00] more about having. shorter seasons, but then shorter breaks between the seasons, like that sort of thing.
So if you're someone, so once you've kind of got these strengths and you're sort of understanding, right. This is my preferences. This is what energizes me. Well, these are maybe the issues I'm experiencing at the moment that I really feel like I need to address. What's the, what's the next steps for people?
Like, how do you start to, to make those changes?
Hannah: Great question. So when you've got to know your strengths and you can start to see, right, this is a bit of a blinding problem for me at the moment, I would really encourage people to take one thing at a time
that they're aware of, really get to know and understand that strength and then begin to put some things in place.
So there's a couple of things you can do. There are other people. So that's one way we mitigate for it through other people helping us. Another way is through a bit more explanation. When we know strengths. It's an ADHD diagnosis.
It's an [00:34:00] explanation. It's not an excuse. So when, if I've got empathy as a strength, I can say to colleagues, you know, I'm, you know, I just want you to be aware that I do carry a lot of emotional energy and sometimes I'm aware that might not. Not always be helpful and I want to apologize for that and give you permission for when to let me know when it's difficult for you. So that then is not just saying, well, I'm going to do this anyway, stuff you, which is, which is not helpful for anybody, but it is giving people permission and kind of grace for us. Another thing that I encourage people to do is to begin to have some some things that you tell yourself. So as I said to you, Sophie, one of the biggest challenges with my strengths is people pleasing
and caring too much what people think. So when I'm in situations where that can be triggered, I have a bit of a thing where I say, right, Hannah, your top strength is Woo.
Woo really likes people, but not everybody's going to like you. And that is okay. You do you and do it as best as you can. Honor the people around you, kind of whether they deserve it or not. And I will [00:35:00] literally talk myself through that process.
Sophie: Yeah.
Hannah: then the final thing you do is, as I've said already, is you start to look at your other strengths and think, how can this one help me with that one?
How do I tip the balance towards this and almost select a different gear? So maybe somebody's using the same gear over and over and over again, and they just need to be reminded, well, actually, you've got some other gears here. How do you start to be more intentional about a different one? So those are some of the strategies I'd say, and really get to know that strength. Listen to podcasts on it, research it, understand it, so that you can really see how it works for your good. Because this is you, and what we want you to be is the best for, you know, as clean, as twee as it sounds. We do want people to be the best version of themselves they can be, because it works for them, their happiness in their life, their engagement at work, and it works for all the people around them as well.
Sophie: Yeah, I think they're all such good points. And definitely, I've kind of done a lot of those since we had our day. And I've understood this more. You're absolutely right. Like, once you are... [00:36:00] Once your eyes open to them, you're like, Oh yeah, that's that coming out. And as I've started to work with people so I've got my podcast VA I've got a starting to work with a social media manager as well.
And she said to me like when we started working together, like, Oh, you know, this is what I normally do with clients, but you know, like, I know, like, I know you're really busy. So like, don't feel like you have to get it to me on the Wednesday. I was like, no. You need to tell me that I have to get it to you on the Wednesday.
Like, if anything, I need you to be more strict with me. Because I need you to be super strict with me, because I'm actually very good at getting things to you. I might do it at, like, 10 p. m. on a Tuesday night, but that's up to that's like that's my
Hannah: That's your
Sophie: That's my choice. Like, if you tell me you are gonna be doing it on the Wednesday morning at 9 a.
m. I'm not sure which strength it is, but for whatever reason I will I would never want to stop someone else being able to do their job because I am a blocker. Like, I just couldn't bear that. So if you need it, I will [00:37:00] prioritize that. That's absolutely not a problem. But you have to be really strict with me.
Because if you say to me, oh, sometime in the middle of the week, you'll probably get it at four o'clock on a Thursday. Because for me, that's still kind of the middle of the week.
Hannah: we are. So we are so similar in this way. So who works with me will tell you, I will often say to her, tell me when you want this for, I need to know the date. And like I said, I may put myself under immense pressure, but I will, I will never not do it. I can't think of a time when I haven't, because I respond well to that kind of. External ask, even if it's like for you, it's the same thing, it's your business
Sophie: I know.
Hannah: and, but I need that kind of upward management
of this is when I need it from, and I will do, I would move hell or high water to make sure I met that deadline,
Sophie: Yeah, absolutely. And even just thinking like when I've been like working out who I'm going to work with and what they're going to do. I haven't like, they haven't done the strengths test, although I can imagine if you're building a team would be incredibly helpful.
Hannah: very.
Sophie: naturally I have sort of, [00:38:00] gravitated towards people who are disciplined and consistent and have an eye for detail and, you know, if I send them over a caption or whatever that I've written, they're going to spot the spelling mistake because that's not my area of expertise. And really, I don't need another person who is like me. I need someone like, you know, to fill in those, like the gaps on the star, like not be on top of the star with me, if you see
Hannah: Totally. I totally agree that when I work with teams, that's my big advice. You know, it's really important for us to have difference in teams. Actually who we are and the spiky bits about us and the things that we do best. That's great. But actually five people who were all the same. We are covering over the same areas.
We're going to have the same gaps. We need to be bringing that difference. So this is a brilliant tool for teams. And I often work with leadership teams to help them see where they've got gaps crossover and really good complementary strengths as well.
Sophie: Yeah, I can really see how how useful that would be. [00:39:00] So, oh my gosh, we've covered so much stuff today. I hope everyone's found it as interesting as I have. I could talk about this sort of stuff all day long. But in terms of the next steps then, whether you are... You know, just running your own business at the moment, but feeling like there's something needs to change if you're going to be able to really kind of grow, or whether you're sort of going through that real growth period and you're thinking, okay, I need to start thinking about who I bring in and what my team can bring me.
Like what, what can you do?
Hannah: Yeah. Well, as Sophie's already said, I love a chat too. So if you want to find me on socials, you can get in touch with me and we can have a conversation. But a really good starting point is to do your strengths. But I never encourage people to just go by the assessment and do it cold because you've got none of the context of, of what does this mean?
I've given a bit of context today, but I've written a very, very short mini digital course, which comes with a free well, it comes with a strengths code included. That is the best way to set yourself up for really understanding your strengths. [00:40:00] And we'll make sure that you've got the link to that and you can find that in the show notes. But that would be where I say, go start there. Make sure you understand what you're doing and don't just read a cold report. Do it with that bit of guidance. And then perhaps from that point, if you've got other people working with you, find out their strengths next after you've got to know your own. So that's my introduction to strengths course. And I've said already to Sophie if you use the promo Sophie 10, then you'll get 10% off that. And it retails at 50 pounds and 95 pounds, depending on which one you're purchasing.
Sophie: Amazing. I honestly think like, if you are interested in this and I found this conversation interesting, you will just love the course because honestly my I don't know how many pages it is. 25 page guide is on my desk, it's got notes all over it, and honestly, since I did the day, it has...
guided so many of the decisions I've made, whether like consciously or unconsciously, it's quite interesting actually looking back at it now, like with the whole rebrand and what, how I've chosen to do things, the [00:41:00] type of people I've chosen to work with. I think if I hadn't have understood the strengths where I had gaps, what I was really missing and how I wanted to build my business, I definitely wouldn't be where I am now.
So I would really highly recommend it. And I will put the links to Hannah's Instagram. And the links to the course in the show notes. And yeah, thank you so much for joining us today.
Hannah: so much, Sophie. It's been lovely to talk to you.
Thank you so much for joining me this week. Before you go, make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you can receive new episodes every Tuesday when they're released. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd love for you to rate or leave a review wherever you are listening to it. It only takes a few seconds, but it really does make a massive difference to new people finding me.
Thank you again for joining me, Sophie, in this episode of Lionheart Marketing. See you next time.
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