https://www.emmamcqueen.com.au/

Do you ever look at successful women and wonder how they manage to keep it all together? Do you feel stuck in your career and life? Do you struggle with feelings of overwhelm, lack of confidence and no clear way forward? If so, you’re not alone. Most female leaders and entrepreneurs experience this at some stage in their lives. What sets the truly successful ones apart is they know how to control their mojo and mindset. They play to their strengths, are unafraid to try something new and Get Shiz Done!

The good news is, you can, too! Yes, you can get paid your worth, elevate your confidence and do all the things you want to do. How? With Go-getter – an inspiring and motivational book packed with real-world, actionable strategies. In this book, leadership coach, mentor and facilitator Emma McQueen: Smashes the 12 myths that hold women back. Reveals the 12 truths so you can not only survive, but thrive. Shares practical tools and strategies so you can take control of your life. Gives you the confidence to take your career or business to the next level.

My Movie emma mcqueen

[00:00:00] Best Book Bits Podcast brings you Emma McQueen, business and leadership coach for women running their own business to get more results. Emma is a mental facilitator and supporter to women from all backgrounds to achieve their full potential for more than 20 years. She’s also the author of the book, go-Getter, raise Your Mojo, shift Your Mindset, and Thrive.

Emma, thank you for being on the show. Oh, thank you so much for having me. It’s awesome to be. No worries. Amazing story. Take us back to how you got started with coaching, mentoring women in your leadership roles. And I know you were in corporate for quite a while as well, but yeah, take us back to how it all started from you.

Yeah, beautiful. I was in corporate. I’ve been in corporate for a long time. Mainly as a recruiter, but then I went and worked at World Vision Australia, which is a not-for-profit here in Australia, 365 mill turnover. And I worked in their HR area and part of HR is dealing with the bad bits and the coaching is dealing with the good bits.

And so I trained at I E C L, which is the Institute for Executive Coaches [00:01:00] and Leadership. And I became an accredited coach and. I just started coaching the execs and they had excellent results from the coaching and just having a sounding board, which was amazing. And then I got asked to join a faculty for Women in Leadership Australia, and that’s where the passion for women and being able to tap into their potential, really, I found my passion there and I found my niche as women.

We don’t necessarily back ourselves all the time, and I could see all this potential in these women. And when they talked it through, talked it out and worked with. , I could see a shift in them. And it was either a mental shift, sometimes it was a physical shift. But they were left better for having had the coaching experience.

And I knew at that point that I had more to give than just being in a HR specific HR role. And I also knew that women Gender gap. There’s women who haven’t got seats at the table, et cetera, et cetera, and I really wanted to just help to change that one woman at a time if I needed to. [00:02:00] And so that’s how I fell into this, yeah. Awesome story. And I like how you said first you doing the corporate staff and then you got invited to executive coaching. You’re doing that, and I’m sure you’re doing that for males and. And then you got to a point where you got invited to then work on a the female panel and then realize who your target audience was, and you’re like, you know what?

Put the men aside for a second. They can take care of themselves. The biggest issue right now is, women in leadership. I finish reading your book. It’s all about women, but it’s also the, it can, if you’re a man listening to this podcast is for you as well, because the principles we’re gonna discuss.

Relate to you as well. So it’s not just for that, but I like how you found your tribe. And then once you are finding your tribe, you really get in there and actually help them with their problems as well. When did the book come out and what motivated you to write the book as well? Yeah, so the book came out March, 2020, which perfect timing.

Yep. As everyone knows COVID hit us then and I had to cancel my book launch, but that came out. Then it took me. I probably wrote a newsletter once a [00:03:00] week and blogged once a week just to get the writing up. And for those people that are thinking about writing a book, it’s not as hard as you think.

I was like, I’ve got nothing to say, all the normal, imposter stuff that happens and then I’m like, actually I’ve got things that I really wanna say. And I still haven’t said them all. And so I wrote a blog every week and just engage my audience. I also was coaching at this time, so I was having a lot of in real life case study moments where.

Finding out the patterns of what women were really struggling with. And I wrote a white paper called create Yourself or Self-Creation White Paper, which was really about the fundamentals of what are the myths holding us back as women. And yes, I do predominantly work with women. It’s a very big secret that I also work with men.

But, and to your point, I had someone a couple of weeks ago, a man who. Out of the blue reached out to me and said, I’ve just finished reading your book and I’ve just given it to my wife. I’m like, oh, that’s so cool. And he said, that was so relevant. And I’m like, that’s super cool. I’m glad you didn’t get put off by the little byline that says it’s for female entrepreneurs

So [00:04:00] it’s, no, that’s cool. No, that’s cool. I’m glad I’m glad you mentioned that as well. I didn’t feel, I didn’t feel weird reading it, but it was a good, it was a very good book, but continue. Yeah, so I so I wrote the white paper and my mentor at the time said, oh, there’s a book here. I’m like, no.

And he’s yeah, there is. And I’m like, okay, cool. So then I looked back at the writing that I’d done and I started realizing my own patterns and themes of the things that I was talking about and the people that I was working with. And I’m like, yeah, there isn’t a book in it. So I took myself off for a couple of days, three.

And I pulled together all the material and I created some models that I thought would make sense for people around commitment and clarity and achievement. And so we pulled it all into a book and that was created the book. So obviously a couple of edits and different bits and pieces later, and we’ve got this beautiful book that hopefully fits into a women’s handbags because the size was quite specific.

Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, it’s a cool story. Thanks for sharing. Diving into the book, so the first chapter you talk about gratitude and you talk about every Friday within the Thriving Women community, we all tell each other what we are grateful for. [00:05:00] Why gratitude? Yeah. It’s interesting, isn’t it? Gratitude is an inside job.

Happiness, I reckon, and gratitude is one of those things that plays into happiness. And so I. Being able to be grateful. Even it’s for the small things. Even if you had a rough week, I think it’s really important. I’m also a mother of three and so I really wanted to bring up children that are kind and generous.

And one of the things that we do at the meal table is what are we grateful for each day? And it makes us think just about the small things and sometimes the big things. And everyone loves it. People have things to be grateful for. And I think if you can train your brain to look for the bits that are great.

Because we automatically go to the bits that aren’t great. And if we can play with gratitude and have something that we are grateful for each day, then I think it really makes a difference to our internal happiness. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. And yeah, not many people do people think about.

Gratefulness every now and then, but do they really put [00:06:00] it into their weekly schedule? So I like how you said every Friday, the community gets together and do that. And I’ve done gratitude journals before. I’ve, can sit there and write out all the great stuff and the. All that stuff.

But unless you turn that into a habit and it’s top of mind, it gets a bit lost, like everything else in life as well gets pushed down that priority with things in life as well. Yeah. So it’s this interesting, you opened up with that as well. Second thing you talk about in the book, and this every everyone can relate, it’s the barriers that women face.

In life. So in the book you talk about you work with all different women and stepping into leadership roles. Women are talented, smart, and have great potential, yet they are not being paid for what they’re worth. They’re struggling with overwhelm and in action, and they don’t know how to change.

Talk about some more barriers or expand on the barriers that women face at the, I think I think Covid has helped everyone recognize what women were going through anyway. So I think when you are trying to balance a career or a business and family and aging [00:07:00] parents and the list just goes on and on, right?

There’s this big mental load that specifically women face. I think I have heard some men say, oh, I do some of that, and I’m like, But men somehow put it into a great compartment, whereas women don’t necessarily put it into that compartment, and they’ve got a long to-do list, imagine 50 tabs open up on your computer.

That’s where women’s heads are at, unless they actively work to reduce that load. And so I think we come from a place where women are already overwhelmed. So that’s the first thing. And then the second thing is there are so many talented women out there that don’t know they’re talented and they don’t talk.

and men are very good at talking about their achievements and if a woman does it, they kind of love, you’re being a brag or you’re, being brash or whatever. But the work does not speak for itself. And this happens a lot in organizations where women have done some great things. I see it in many organizations.

They’re in a boardroom. A woman says something, A [00:08:00] man says exactly the same thing a minute later, and he’s celebrated. We’ve got so far to go to help women find their voice and also to celebrate what they have actually achieved because just doing the work’s not enough. Yeah, said. And in the book year, you point out some facts.

I’ll just go through some facts. So women still do more of the housework than men. I semi tired. I work from home, so I do a bit of housework, but majority, yeah. Women do you know most of the housework, women are not looking after themselves as they should, even though we think they spend too much on makeup and clothes and shoes like my wife does.

But it’s looking after themselves, spiritually, emotionally, mentally. Stuff, not just physically. Women struggle with confidence. That’s getting back to belief. They might have the skillset and talent, but do they really believe that? And they struggle with confidence, which affects everything.

Then the other one, women tend to be perfectionist, which again stops them from, activity as well. Yeah, some of the things you put in there. But just to go back as well, you talk about. Are growing businesses. So interesting fact in the past decade, significant increase in female owner operated activity.

Do you wanna talk [00:09:00] about that? That’s a really interesting fact of there’s a lot more women in the workplace, but a lot more women are now business operators in Australia. Where does that trend come from? Yeah, absolutely. I suppose if I think about my own story, I had a great job and a great supportive boss and I also was juggling the mum juggle.

And moms do more of the childcare pickups and drop-offs. And when kids are sick, it normally falls on the mum. This is typical, right? I’m not saying that there’s not anomalies to this, but typically it becomes the mum’s responsibility. And I think that because of that, I had to keep going to my boss to go, I’ve gotta go pick my kid up.

Gotta go do this. And the guilt associated with that just sucked. And I, at the end, I was just like, you know what? If I’m my own boss, I actually don’t need to do this. I can have the flexibility that I need for my kids. I can do work that I love with people who I wanna work with. What’s not to love. . Now, at the same time, I think there’s [00:10:00] also this perception that running a business is easy, which you and I both know is not the case.

And and so people jump in with a technical skill, like a coaching skill or a HR skill, and forget that they actually need to do some sales because that’s how they’re gonna bring in revenue. And We see a lot of businesses rise up and they go, I can do this on my own. And then we see a lot of businesses who kind of plateau out before they hit a 200 Kmart from a revenue perspective, and then they fail in the next two years because they just didn’t have, it was just too ebb and flow.

There wasn’t enough cash flow. They didn’t wanna do the business development pieces. So there’s a lot of women entering this gig economy, micro-businesses, which are tiny businesses through to large businesses who are just going, I don’t wanna be. in this way by normally senior management, which are men.

There’s 8% of CEOs around the world are women, 8% . While women are going off and having babies they’re not progressing in their career. And that limits us a bit. [00:11:00] So I think for a variety of reasons, the gig economy’s just gone bang. I think also working from home, definitely here in Australia, corporates were like, no people don’t work from home.

And Covid has changed all of that. Covid has changed that in a way that no one had anticipated. And finally it means there’s flexibility in freedom for workers. And I don’t think that was there before Covid. So I think we’ll still see the uprising of those type of businesses coming up because I think people.

now used to the flexibility and then I wanna give that back. Yeah. There’s the thing about the online business and brick and mortar business. So when Covid happened, I always said, you look in the city, this around the world, you’ve got high rises. People go there and I always say, what do they do there?

I never worked in a highrise. I’ve worked in the city, but not a high rise. They’re on the phone emails or meetings. . That’s pretty much it. The top three things. And then when Covid happened, everyone was like working from home. So they’re on the laptop, they’re in their kitchen table, they build a studio, archive, whatever they did, and they’re doing phones, email.

Meetings and then they realized the [00:12:00] people on the other end of the phone or the emails or the meetings aren’t the particular people I wanna be working with. And they’re like, if I just shifted what I’m selling or saying or doing, I could actually do exactly the same thing. Emails, phone calls, meetings with my back to your tribe.

Find my tribe, sell ’em a product, sell ’em a service. All of a sudden. I’ve got a little business. And then that flexibility of picking up the kids, dropping ’em off, whatever it is, homeschooling, this is why it’s never going away now because they’ve uncracked the code. We don’t need to all go to this ho this building have, be surrounded by people We don’t really, coworkers, are they really their friends?

Not really. They’re just, people we get along with management. Are they really their friends? Do they have their best interests? . Not really. We’re just a number. Very replaceable when you leave a job. Anyway, I’m ranting now. . I love it. I love it. You’ve said the exact Exactly right. And also organizations have gone, why are we hiring this whole high-rise building when we can actually cut costs and lay around work from home?

That’s what they wanna do. People are really struggling to get their people back to [00:13:00] work now. as a business owner paying rent and stuff at wages, if you could save on rent and have a skinny staff, you know you’re gonna do it because at the end of the day it’s money moving on in the book.

So getting back to the barriers that you know, women have to overcome, you talk about three of them, so women tend, okay, so we talk about mindset number one. You talk about mojo and motivation as well. Can you expand on mindset, motivation, and mojo as well? Yeah. Let me start with mojo, cuz I reckon mojo’s the most important thing.

So mojo, you could also. The use the word energy, right? You could interchange it. So energy, if we don’t have enough energy to do the things that we need to do, then we’re, we are not gonna be happy. Our family’s not gonna be happy. And so what I work with women on is actually, normally, it’s really basic stuff, to be honest with you.

It’s are you eating well? Are you drinking enough water and you’re getting enough sleep? And the craziness is the answer to all those three. I normally know when I start working with women and what we do know. in war times they use torture, a sleep [00:14:00] deprivation as torture. So if you are not getting their sleep, you need then.

You are not being the best version of you. And what I want is I want women to be able to do what they’re passionate about, to make money while they’re doing it, but also to have enough energy left in the tank at the end of the day for their family because we give the drugs to our family. Sometimes, and I am guilty of this as well, especially in my first couple of years of running my business.

My husband sat me down. He said, you’re doing so great. The financials look amazing. But you wrecked. I’m like, yeah, I am. And he’s we’re not getting the best of you. I’m like, yeah, that’s true. So I had to learn this the hard way, right? So now I focus on the energy. I’m like, you gotta get your sleep, you gotta get a decent diet.

You’ve gotta get the right amount of exercise and you’ve gotta drink enough water. Let’s get those main things happening. And if I may, quick story. I was coaching someone, I had her for three. And she approached me. She said, Emma, I’ve got an issue with confidence now, Michael, you need to know that when people come to me and tell me what the issue is, it’s not always [00:15:00] that issue.

So we dug a little bit deeper and what was happening for her is that she was. We went to the basics. We went straight to the basics and went, how much sleep are you getting? She’s I come in, I do a 12 hour day. This is when they were going into the office. I do a 12 hour day. I go home and my husband works late, so I have something to eat, and I jump on my computer for a few more hours, and then I close my laptop and I go to bed.

I’m like, oh, cool. How many meals are you skipping in the day? She’s oh, I probably eat once or twice a day. I’m like, oh, okay, cool. And water like. Like coffee. I’m like, oh, dear. Okay. So what we did, and the remembering the issue was confidence, right? And she said, my boss doesn’t, isn’t he keeps asking me questions.

It’s like nothing is ever good enough. And I just can’t seem to catch a break. So the first piece, my homework I gave this poor woman was okay, you need to leave the office and you need to leave your laptop at the office and you need to drive home in silence. There’s some research called the Third Space.

Have you heard of the third space? No, but I’m going to now. . Yeah. Yeah. It’s called the Third Space. Adam Grant, I think is the author. [00:16:00] And he talks about just having a moment to yourself in between meetings, in between minutes, in between interactions. But what I wanted her to do was drive home in silence, because what we know about silence, rather than fill your brain with more crap, what we know is if we could just drive home in silence, she could process the day, get.

Get to home and the day would already be processed. But the other trick was she wasn’t allowed to open her laptop at the other end, cuz that would just fire up the whole day again. So I asked her to drive home in silence and I asked her to drive to work in silence. But on the way to work, she needed to think about the day ahead, what she needed to get done, and what she was gonna achieve.

And on the way home, it was about de fragging for the day. And then I asked her to go to bed. Earlier than she had been going to bed and to get into a regular rhythm of water. and eating. Anyway, she looked at me like I had horns. I can tell you right now. She’s like, how is this gonna help my comfort? I’m like, just trust me.

Just trust. Trust the process. Anyway, I spoke to her a couple of weeks later [00:17:00] and she’s Emma, you’ll never guess what I’m like, what? What ? And she said, I don’t think my issue is confidence. I’m like, oh, isn’t that interesting, ? And she said, I feel so much better. I’m like, are you doing all the things she said?

Yes. And we had added journaling in there as well, because she needed to get some stuff out. and I said, great, now we’ll deal with the real thing. And she said, what’s the real thing? I’m like, the real thing stakeholder engagement. And she’s oh, I can see that now. So because she was so knackered, because she wasn’t processing properly, she thought it was a confidence issue, but actually it was just a sleep deprivation issue and some healthy habits stuff that we put in place for her.

And then we worked on the real issue, which is managing her boss. So it was super interesting to me that just looking at the energy component actually helped this woman go, yeah, it’s not a confidence. It’s such a great story and isn’t that funny that when you dig a little bit deeper, someone comes out with the reason they think is the problem, which is they’re experiencing a problem, but the root of the problem is beyond that as well.

So [00:18:00] water, sleep. I like how you said driving silence. I’ll check out third space and processing the day, especially journaling as well. That’s really cool. Is. I was gonna say. Okay, cool. Adam Fraser, another thing that you you said off camera, you talked about you, you did a retreat recently in four days.

And first thing I said to you, Hey, you wrecked, and you said, no, I manage my energy. Can you talk about how you personally manage your energy now and your success is based on how you feel after a big event? Yes. Good question. And I’m still learning this, so there’s two. First thing of the day, I meditate.

So before the family gets up, my time is for meditation. I have a cup of tea and I meditate. And that’s how I start my day. So I don’t get to the end of the day and go, I’ve had no time for myself. I put myself in the driver’s seat. I get up at whatever time I need to get up so that the family’s not up and I do that.

But last year I got I had Covid lucky me, which triggered Glandula fever. I dunno if you’ve ever had glandular fever, but it’s basically naps. Lots of naps. And as a business owner and a busy mom, [00:19:00] I was like, how the heck am I gonna put naps into my diary? But I have a great business manager and she said, I’m gonna put them in my diary.

You’re just gonna nap for 45 minutes. They’re gonna go in the diary and we’re gonna get this thing done. So for 2022, I napped every single day. , which was great. But what I found is that I woke up refreshed and feeling like I’m ready to go. I didn’t drag myself to the end of the day, but I also inserted micro breaks into my day.

So when we were talking about the retreat that I did, I went into that retreat. I was so well planned. I knew what I needed to do from an energy management perspective and when they had breaks. So during the day if we. Do lunch and then have half an hour to yourself. I went back to my room and I meditated for 10 or 20 minutes and just gave myself those micro breaks to keep going because on the Saturday I came home and I had a basketball game, a netball game to watch, and a 50th birthday party to go to, and I’m like, I cannot go home knackered.

I’m gonna go home with energy in the tank. [00:20:00] And so I reckon micro bakes are amazing. I reckon naps are amazing. They’ve changed my. So much science, steeped in naps and certainly doing it before a different time. And now I’m experimenting with how much time do I need to have a nap? Do I need 45 minutes?

Do I need 20? What makes me feel good? I’m almost like hacking my energy sauce. I have to say. I also got my diet together and I drink a lot of water. And I don’t drink caffeine I’ve, I don’t drink alcohol, I don’t drink caffeine. The only advice I have is a sweet tooth, which I’m trying to sort out right at the moment.

But I think all that energy management, you’ve just gotta hack yourself and work out what’s actually gonna work, and also create the habits that are gonna stick. You said something about caffeine. I got off coffee for two years, but I smashed the tea so I was still on caffeine, but I had to get off rid of the coffee cuz my energy was up and down there, was just scattered all over the place.

And know, my wife calls me the original a d, so I’m like, I’ve got a lot of energy and coffee was up and down. I’ve managed it now, so one in the morning, one in the afternoon, I have a cup of tea and a [00:21:00] green tea at night. And my energy gloves are pretty good. I do gym, I do water and stuff as well.

Do you recommend getting. Coffee and tea if you can, or like caffeine completely. Cause that’s very hard. That’s the number one addiction in the world is caffeine. People don’t realize it. Is it? I thought it was sugar. No, that’s caffeine. So I did it’s caffeine. So there’s a podcast. If you just Google the podcast, you like caffeine.

I think it’s Adam I can’t remember his name. Anyway, caffeine is the number one addiction in the world for the last 300 years. Wow. Tea and coffee. So caffeine. Okay. I went off caffeine very accidentally. I’m, I just have a coffee a day. I was a coffee a day girl. And in, when we went into the first lockdown, I decided to train for a half marathon because that sounds like a good idea when you can only go five K’s outside of your house.

And so I trained the entire year and then on January 1st, cause I don’t drink, I got up and did the 21 K’s right. And I got a coffee after, couldn’t stomach, it was done. So it was so accidental. The alcohol [00:22:00] was far more deliberate because when I had a drink, half a glass, Of wine and I felt like I couldn’t actually drive a car, so I’m like, it wasn’t worth it.

Three day hangover, not worth it, but caffeine, I just was like, no, I don’t wanna but I do drink tea. I don’t drink a lot of herbal tea as well. So I think it depends if you can balance it out with water, you’ve gotta have something right. Yeah, got it. Correct. I don’t do alcohol anymore coffee’s my drug.

Anyway, moving on. Getting back to the book. We’ve got so much to cover. We haven’t touched on the myths as well, but one thing you talk about, the conversations we’re having with ourselves as well and the conversations women are having with themselves as well. Do you find a lot of that, you talk about chaos and confusion, clarity and confidence, conviction, engagement.

Do you wanna expand on any of those? Yeah. So we are our own worst enemy. This imposter syndrome that happens. To us and it I think it does happen to men as well, but I think it just outworks differently. And we’ve got almost got this devil on our shoulder going, you can’t do that, you can’t do that, you can’t do that.

Whereas we [00:23:00] just have to prove to ourselves that we actually can do that. So I kind of it for a visual, I say to people, spit the words out into the palm of your hand and actually inspect the words and see if you actually can do the thing that you’re saying you can’t do. And the chaos to confusion, to clarity is really around, actually.

as we, for business owners, especially about women in leadership, when things feel chaotic, it feels overwhelming. So how do we move out of the chaos? And sometimes that means being in the mess, messy middle, which is what I call confusion and then into clarity. What are the things, and this is where coaching helps because it helps you to get out of those stages pretty quickly and actually do the work on yourself.

Out of the space of confusion and into the space of clarity and confidence. And what we really want is we really wanna be convicted in our own ability to get stuff done. Whether that’s you in a leadership role, whether that’s you got your own business, whether that’s family stuff, we really just want you to feel [00:24:00] like, imagine if everyone in the world just felt confident in what they, who they were and what they were.

The world would be a totally different place. And I think that women especially need that extra support. And I’ve been called a lot of things, . One of them is a cheerleader, but I also kick people in the butt. Cause I’m like, Hey, we gotta get this thing done. I’m cheering for you and I’m holding belief that you.

Have the confidence and the capability to do this thing. I’ll hold it until you catch up to me. And a lot of women love that cuz they’re like, okay, someone’s got my back. I’m free to go and do what I can do. And then they’re like, oh, I can do this thing. I’m like, I’m never surprised. People just need someone to believe in him more than they believe in themselves for that belief To catch up.

Just to summarize what you said, and in the book you talk about the three elements that create success is. Confidence and commitments, and I like how you put it. So you put it like this. Clarity plus commitment equals activity. Commitment plus confidence equals [00:25:00] alignment. Clarity plus confidence equals achievement.

Put ’em all together. You’ve got clarity, confidence, commitment equals results, and you are unstoppable. . Awesome stuff. Awesome stuff. Activity, alignment, achievement through there. Getting onto the miss. Here we go. So we’ll probably have to speed through these. So you’ve got 10, miss. So number one, you talk about I should be happy with what I have, which is, what happens, when you’re too nice.

But the truth is, There is more that you want to do and can do as well. Can you touch on the myths and truths, number one? Yeah. I think a lot of us go, yeah, my life’s pretty good. I’m happy with what I’ve got. I would be greedy if I wanted more. And I think that’s metabolics. I think you can have more.

You just need to be decide what the more is and then go and get it. But I think we get stuck in I should, it’s un Australian, all those kind of things that we tell ourselves, and I just don’t think that’s true. So I really wanted to just flip the switch and go, Nope, you can have [00:26:00] what you want.

You might not be able to have it all at the same time. It might have to be sequenced. There might have to be a process, but you are entitled to live your life as much as you. Inter, it’s interesting, right? So I’m a big journal nerd, right? Secrets outta the bag. 15 years. Big journals. I’ve got, yeah, five. So I’ve got a double, I do a double page every day.

So every year I write a 750 page book and every night. Wow. Yeah, it’s crazy. Every night I read last year, so 2022, and then 2021 recently though, so I only normally go back two. And then I’ve also got the photos to match it too. So I’ll look at the, read the journal, then I’ll go back in the photos. And for me it’s to process the past, but also to see the growth.

This is like elite journaling, maybe O C D to a point of really unhealthy and I spent a lot of time, but I enjoy it. I’ve been going back five years now, back to like 2018 announced. Now it’s 18, 19, 20. Recently I’ll read my 2018 journal and all the goals I had in. I’m currently [00:27:00] 80% live in most of them, but it never went the way I thought it would go or look like.

And that’s when you say myth number one. And the truth is, you can have everything you want. , but it’s maybe not gonna feel the way you thought it would feel. Look the way you think it’s gonna look and take the journey that it took. It actually took a really weird journey. And that’s life. Take it. I’ll leave it.

Yeah. I love it. I love that. Is a bit O C D. That’s a lot of journaling. . No, but it’s, yeah, I know. It’s my, it’s. It’s my way to process as well because I got a lot of, because I’m an original a d, I’ve got so many things in projects and businesses on the go. It’s my way to focus on what I need to focus on as well.

But it’s my way to come down and process the day as well. Cuz sometimes it’s not about activity, it’s about the right activity. Like for example, my phone’s ringing right now and that one phone call. Could potentially make me a lot of money, whereas some people might work for years to not get that phone call.

So that’s why the journaling is do I take that opportunity? But I’m rambling [00:28:00] right now. Jumping onto myth number two. Myth number two, you talk about I just need more time. But the truth is there is no more time . hear this all the time. You’ve probably said it myself. I’ve said it myself. I just need more time.

If there was more hours in the day, but guess what? There’s not more hours in the day. So then the trick is how do we actually prioritize what’s important? And I have these people that I coach and they’re like, I’ve got this massive to-do list. I’m like, right top three. And they’re like, excuse me, I’m like top three.

That’s all I want you to get done. And they’re like, whoa. I’m like, where’s the. Are we talking revenue generation? Are we talking people leadership? What is the thing? What are the three things that are gonna have the biggest impact on your day-to-day? And that’s all I want you to focus on. And the relief on their faces is like permission granted to actually only focus on three things because chances are you got a whole stack of stuff on you to-do list that you actually don’t need to really do.

That doesn’t make an. It’s funny you say that. So the every month I’ll do a to-do list, and in February it got to the point where I can pull it out and show you. But there was 30 [00:29:00] things on the do list and I’m sitting here in the studio in overwhelm going, oh, What do I do first? So I’ve got the calendar there, and then I’ve done the to-do list top 10.

So I’ve done about four things on the to-do list, top 10. I’ve gotta update it soon. I really just need a daily top three. This is the biggest problem. Sometimes the opposite’s true that we put so much food on our plates. and we say yes to everything. And then yes to someone is a no to you. And a no is someone, is a yes to you.

And even though I might have all the information and knowledge about it, but you’re continually saying yes to so many things, you overbook yourself and get yourself into a position where you’ve got too much to do and not enough time. So there is enough time for the right things, but it’s very important to say no to the things that aren’t gonna serve your highest purpose as well.

Thank you for sharing that. Myth. Myth number three, it says it shouldn’t be this hard, but the truth is it is. Life is hard. You can amplify the [00:30:00] results though. Once people realize that life is hard, it doesn’t become hard anymore. The issue is when people say, oh, it’s life’s too hard. Bloody oath.

It’s hard. So do you wanna expand on how life is actually hard? And how you overcome that myth. Yeah. Because it’s about op amplifying the result in a way. So rather than going, oh, life is too hard. It might be hard, but let’s leverage what you’ve already got. And so that’s about how we show up our energy, what boundaries we have in place, how the work compounds when you don’t.

Workloads just get bigger. They don’t ever get smaller. And it definitely is a business owner, there’s always stuff you could be doing. Always stuff. I can leave my office and still have 20 things to do. But I think also we get into this, we can get into this thing where I just can’t be bothered.

There’s my, I’ve got too many tabs open. I can’t, there’s too much in my brain box. I get overwhelmed, which paralyzes people into getting nothing done. So it’s all about actually using. What you’ve got. So if you use technology well great. If you don’t turn it off, take out distractions, focus on [00:31:00] one thing at a time, and use different techniques.

There’s a great technique I talk bang on often about called the Pomodoro, which is you set your timer 25 minutes, you get one task done, you have a cup of tea in the last five minutes, and then you get going again. It’s just how do you hack yourself so that you can amplify the. and also play. Dear strengths.

I’m a big believer that there’s things for me that I outsource because I’m no good at them, but my coaching I’m great at, so how do I play more to that? And so I think you can, it doesn’t have to be this hard. We can amplify the result and some of those hacks helps us do that. They say the best. Valentine’s Day yesterday, the best gift you can give someone is an empty Google calendar for the next day.

You know that? . I love that. How excited do we get now when people cancel a meeting on us? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So yeah, people that’s one thing I recently realized, like today the only thing I had was this podcast. And in the afternoon I’m like, what am I gonna do? I’m gonna take my dog to an off leash park and have some fun with the dog cause I haven’t spent time with [00:32:00] him.

And it just things like that. Anyway that’s one of the fulfillment of life. I like what, there’s a great quote in the book you talk about, it says, we expect women to work like they have no children and raised children as though they don’t work. Sucks, doesn’t it? I had to put it in there, because this women in leadership, whether they’re running their own business in an organization, it’s not just for women to change it, it’s males also to realize there’s a systemic issue here and that we need everyone on.

To understand what the problems are and to help everyone else solve the problem. As a man. We wish it went back to the old days where the one income could support a family and, we didn’t have this thing called inflation. But, life has never always been like this in terms of what it is, but it is what it is.

You can’t go back. But, men wanna support women wanna support their families and the men as well. I think both of them. Husband and wife have the right ideas. But you’re right, systemically in terms of the work around the world, [00:33:00] there is this masculine versus feminine dynamic and duo going on.

But we’ll get there. Another great quote you put in the book, done is better than perfect. How many times that perfectionist, it has to be perfect. We know it’s good. Just it’s done. Just get it out there as well. Is that a struggle that women and men find as well, that dunny is better than. Oh, men less men less. So I find that men are like, yeah, let’s do it. So a typical example is there’s a job ad and a guy goes, I’ve got 50% of those things. I’ll apply for that. A woman goes, oh, I’ve got 80%. I can’t apply for it. That’s the easiest thing that I can think of. And I also think that I’m not a perfectionist, so I’m literally, 50% is good enough, I’m done, and I move on because that’s how my brain works.

But a lot of women get stuck in perfectionism and procrastination, and I’ve got a client who keeps sending me spreadsheets and I’m like, stop sending me spreadsheets. Go make some money. You’ve got what you need. Just go make some money. And she’s but I’m, I need to get the spreadsheet. I’m like, yeah, when you’re [00:34:00] making a lot of money, you can get the spreadsheet right.

I promise. . , but we struggle with that. Sometimes all business plans work out on paper. It’s just when you go in, when you go and execute those plans, it’s a different story. No. Cool. I’m like that too. I used to spreadsheet the hell out of things. Now I don’t. I just I don’t spreadsheet things.

Myth number four. This is a good one. Really good one. If you’re, listen. Turn the volume up. I need the world to stop so I can catch up. The truth is, you can move from chaos to calm. It’s a choice. Excellent. Anything you want to say on that? I think of speaks for itself, . I think that this is a bit of a controversial myth because people were like, ah, what do you mean I can move from cares to come?

What do you mean it’s my choice? I’m like, take some control. At some point we have to just accept. This is hard or this feels chaotic, but what’s it doing to my people? What’s it doing to my family? It destroys people. So if you are prepared to move through it which means, you get more effective in your systems, you [00:35:00] get more effective at engaging your people, you get to, for those in organizations, you get to actually focus on your people.

Then you’re gonna enjoy it more. And what we know is, It all starts with mindset. And so if you can make the choice to make things better, oh, chances are tomorrow they’ll be better. And to tie that back to what you said earlier in the conversation with that client, who’s the stakeholder here? Are you the boss or are you like the end of the day, ed?

We can’t carry the world, we can’t change what’s on the tv, what comes over the radio waves, what’s on the internet, what the, what pops up on the phone. So technology’s, pretty much bombard us every single day. But we really need to stop. And you’re right, we can’t stop the chaos, but we can control the calm and we can put ourselves in situations where I love what you said earlier, which was you can drive your car in silence, you can go to bed.

You can get off the coffee, you can get on water, you can really quiet the world [00:36:00] down. Go for a what, whatever it is, we can. But this is the thing about having an active choice in our life and actually saying, you know what? I need to stump, stop pumping the accelerator and put both feet on the brake momentarily.

And. Pop the accelerator, turn the steering wheel, direct it to wherever we go. Simple stuff. But how important is it getting off topic to have a coach like yourself and someone to actually guide you on the right path and to, how important is it to have mentors and coaches as well for men and women?

Yeah. Yeah. Interestingly, myth five is about I should be able to do it on my own. But actually we all need a village, right? And so if it’s a coach or a mentor or other business people or other leaders, we all need other people. Like they say, it takes a village to raise a child. It takes a village to run a career.

It takes a village to run a business. So get the right people around you. And I I can’t remember the famous quote. It’s a famous quote. You are the sum of the five people you hang out. Yeah. And it’s, I think it’s, I’ve got two coaches, [00:37:00] because they help me with really different things. And I think.

That if you have someone that isn’t your partner, cause I think that is a burden that is too heavy for people to bear. But if you can find a mentor or a coach to help you just with some of these things, especially when you’re on a leadership journey or running your own business, it can be lonely. And so you wanna know that you’re not alone.

I have people that hire me as just a sounding board. Literally they’re CEOs in really large organizations and they get an hour a month and they just sit opposite me and I’m just their sounding board. They don’t need anything from me. I might ask some questions, but they actually just, that’s one hour to themselves that they get where someone actually cares.

And then I’ve got business owners who are like, I need more of you. And I’m like, yep, no worries. And so I help them every single day for months sometimes, because that’s what they need. And so I think different personalities would de depend on how much support you actually need, but we [00:38:00] do all of those because we know that people are human and.

Being a coach, for me, it’s about having a tailored response to all of my clients. So it sounds chaotic, but it’s actually not, and there are some clients who just get on and do it, and then other clients that just need to wee bit more support. When you spoke about the CEO being a sounding boarder, remind me of Wendy from that show.

Billions. I’m not sure if you’ve seen that show, but you’ve got the billionaire investor guy, and he’s got the lady in the office who’s a, I think she’s a psychologist and basically your whole job is just to make sure that he’s operating on all cylinders and that’s what a coach, that’s what a coach does.

Look at any sporting team, you’ve got coaches. Why do they got coaches? And even look at like this. So I think a weird one, but Nick Curios a tennis player, his ego’s too big, so he doesn’t have a coach. And where is he now? . Is that, why does he not have a coach? Doesn’t have a coach. No, he can’t have a coach.

He’s got he might have a trainer. He is got this young kid, I watched a documentary recently on Netflix about breakpoint. Anyway, [00:39:00] so this is why if you’re at, you might have talent. It’s great. , but you need systems, you need sounding boards, you need people around you as well. And this is building a tribe.

You life’s not a solo project. Get around people. We could get, we could, you could write a book about that as well. But I’ve got one poster in my studio and it’s called Your net Worth is your network. And I can tell you that’s the my network. Has improved my net worth and it’s not me.

Like it’s very interesting how true it is. It’s scary when you realize you invest in people and people invest in you. You can go fast alone or you can go further with other people as well. Anyway we can just sit here and call this the quote podcast show and just, I can just ramble off a million quotes cuz I wrote a book on quotes called Success and 50 Steps.

But hey, that I did back in 2007 that turned into my book in 2020. I did, I wrote a thousand page book of quotes, which was, I was young. Myth number six. You talk about I have to multitask to be successful and I struggle with this still. We just talked about this before, but the truth is you need to [00:40:00] ruthlessly prioritize to be successful.

So I think we touched on this anyway, but anything you wanna expand on that? How important is it for people to clean up their, their to-do wisdom, to get their shit together? Okay let me just say this. If you are in the middle of deep. And you get interrupted. You answer your phone, you answer a social media whatever.

It takes you 23 minutes to get back into that deep. . Imagine how many 23 minutes you’re wasting a day by trying to multitask or not deal with distractions. It’s unbelievably true and I think this is why a lot of, I’ve read a book recently in not the 5:00 AM Club, but the Morning Rituals. I did a book summary, but morning Habits of the most Successful People and the reason why the most successful people wake up early in the morning before everyone else is the silence.

No distractions and they can get the what’s that called? High hard goals done. High hard goals are done by yourself. They’re not done. The things you can do those two hours a day, that compounds into those things as well. Yeah. Totally get your shit [00:41:00] together. Say no to people clean to do with up top.

Got it. Myth number seven, our inner voice holds us back. But the truth is you can choose which voice you listen to as well. Call out the inner critic. Is it fact or fiction? Reframe your brain. Which one’s important outta that? Remember I gave the example earlier about you spitting it into your hand and inspecting it.

I reckon that’s the big thing. So you’re, you basically, if you can imagine, I’ve got something in my brain that says I can’t do X. So you spit it out and you look it in your hand and you inspect it and go, is that actually true? I haven’t done it before. Okay, so you haven’t done it before, so you’re about to practice it or is it true?

The last time I did it, it didn’t get a great, it didn’t get much audience engagement. Could you do it differe? And I think sometimes we have to separate what our brain is telling us, which is normally made up to actually what the facts are. And when we do that, we’re able to almost take out all the emotion of it and go, yep, okay, this is not true.

I can get on with my life. So true. So true. Myth number eight reminds me of Tim Ferris’s book, the Four Hour Work Week. So you, the myth [00:42:00] is I just need to tick things off the list. And then truth number eight is you need a laser focus and Clarity gets focused. What I remember from the four Hour Work Week is one of the biggest ones was if you take.

Tell your boss, your, let’s say you tell your boss you got covid or you’re sick and you go on a holiday for a week and you turn off all the technology and you come back. You realize the world didn’t stop. And this is the thing with emails, people treat email like it’s a a message service where the email used to come from snail mail, which was direct mail, but we treat it now.

If you don’t respond in straight away, what are you doing? So it’s just even do your emails in the. Do your emails at night, let people know you only check it twice a day. Like that little thing, we only check emails between 8:00 AM and 9:00 AM and 8:00 PM and 9:00 PM In between those time, if it’s urgent, you can call me on this particular number.

What that does, it alleviates a lot of stress, but that’s, this is why you need to realize that the world doesn’t stop because you are walked off on your social media things. Yeah, and I’m always reminded by this when someone [00:43:00] passes, . And so when someone passes away from you who’s close and your whole world changes, no one else’s world has changed.

And I’m always reminded of that which helps with, going, how am I living my best life every day? But I always think, you know what, no one else’s life has changed except mine or except the person, or, except the family or all those kind of things. But I agree with you. We only check, I only checks emails twice a day.

That’s just a non-negotiable, and I don’t even have notifications on my inbox or on my phone, notifications of a killer. my biggest one, and me and my wife, fight about this or ingest. I put my phone on flight mode at night and I put it in the far away room in the. My wife goes to bed with the phone and she’s just on reels and I’m just like, just turn, put, turn it off.

But everyone’s got their different process through there and that’s marriage. It’s not a podcast about marriage. But even if someone touched on the death thing that’s a very fascinating thing cuz it’s totally true. If you found out someone died to your close, everything else becomes irrelevant in that moment and in the proceeding weeks as well.

And you would. [00:44:00] Cancel things, put things on hold. And the funny thing is everyone else understands. They’re like, yeah, we understand. So if you treat your life like even your own, if you’ve got a, if you had a terminal diagnosis and you’ve given a six months to live everything, 99% of the things that you worry it’s just everything would fall to part as well.

So you need to take those time off and realize that the world doesn’t stop just because you stop. You can stop and the world can continue. You don’t own the world. You are just. Part of a small little speck on the planet. Anyway, this is very philosophical. We’re running outta time, but let’s skip through.

Let’s go through two more myths. Let’s push through. Myth nine. I’ll fake it till I make it, but the truth is, confidence gets belief. How important is it to actually build confidence on the shit that you do and belief as well, but to do things to get confidence, not just faking it. Yeah, I hate the fake it till you make it.

So this reminds me, you go to the gym, so when you first go to the gym, you just have to rock up to the gym. You have to put your clothes on first, then you have to rock up to the gym. That’s the discipline bit. And then you’ve gotta go twice or [00:45:00] three times a week. And that’s the consistency bit.

And then you get to learn all the machines and bits and pieces and then, You create a habit and then you do the experience. You just go over and over again and by the end you’re like, okay, I’ve got this. I’m confident at the gym. That’s like anything in our life. And I would say that sometimes we need to actually have the belief before the belief that we can do it before the confidence even hits.

So don’t wait for motivation to hit. Just start doing something and then the confidence. Yeah, absolutely. We’re getting at the audience. We’re going to, we’re gonna skip the other myths so you can go out and buy the book. So if people want to find out the other myths and find out more about the book, where can they get a copy of the book and find out more about yourself as well, Emma?

Yes. Any good online retailer sells it. My website sells it. We’ve got it on Amazon and it’s also on Audible, so if you wanna listen to the book, you can listen to the book as well. So it’s in all those. , any women are listening to this. I do have an audience of women [00:46:00] that say, you know what, I like what you’re saying.

I do need some eyes and ears and someone to coach me as well. Where can they find out more about yourself and get in contact with? Yeah, I hang out@emmamcqueen.com au. I also hang out at Instagram and I’m on LinkedIn, Instagram. I’m Emma Arm McQueen and LinkedIn. I’m Emma McQueen. And yeah, I would love to hang out with people.

I would love to hear what they think and whether or not they think this is a total load of BS or whether or not they think that it, we have something to say that’s worth listening. Absolutely. And I just wanna say one last thing before you go, so that poster behind you. I am a go-getter. I know that progress goes ahead of perfection.

I try new things, fail fast, get back up and fake to heart what I’ve learned. I choose fulfillment and freedom where my passion and purpose meet. I do work I love with people. I like and I get paid my worth. I am free from undefined action Business without Results Theory. Over practicality, my business grows as I try to innovate, approach, and step forward without all the answers.

I am determined. [00:47:00] Resilient and no, I need to keep moving. I am enthusiastic, optimistic, and energetic every day. Emma McQueen, thank you for being on the show. Did I get that right, by the way? Yes, you did. You got it right. It’s all good. Thank you. That’s awesome. No stress at all. And we shall speak to you soon and tomorrow.

Audience, go out there and follow Emma and yeah, bye. A book check at us and if you’re a women, and if you’re one of those guys like myself that need a woman, coach . Check out Emma, she’s, she does great stuff and we shall speak soon. Okay. Thanks so much, Emma. Cheers. Thanks so much.