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Momentum call
Jessica Abel (she/her)
00:00Of the admin stuff this morning, starting end of January, you're eligible to have your bonus half hour coaching call, and if you've been using your tracker, then you also earn a milestone call, which is half an hour. So you can do an hour call if you want to. That is an option. So basically, end of January, I'll send out a link, and it'll be like, you can either do this, you can do that you should send me by the end of the month, or around the end of the month, like, visual evidence of your tracking. And if you hit your other milestone, which was to do the things we talked about in your onboarding call, then you can also earn that milestone as well. That one's always trickier, you know, because it's dependent on luck in the world happening and so on. But so that's, that's next, um, re I was just saying we're like, end of the month, we're going to start, I'm start opening up my calendar for bonus coaching, calls, milestone calls, whatever. So I will be in touch with you around the last week of January. About that. Alright, so that's what I got in terms of announcements, I am open session, so who would like to start today? And the usual thing is, unless you have something specific, just let's talk about something good that happened this week and something that's been a challenge.
ri
01:42I you want
Jessica Abel (she/her)
01:45to start this week? I was
Jessica Mehring
01:47going to suggest the same thing.
ri
01:50Okay, I'm talking
Jessica Abel (she/her)
01:51with your business, by the way. Now, like last week, you were like, it, is it even real? And now, now what? Okay,
ri
01:57so, yeah, yeah. I guess if you're gonna push me, I would still feel that I'm still interested in the decluttering. What I'm realizing is I've never, I mean, I've done it once. I've had one client once, just sort of by chance, a friend hired me to do that. And so for me to start this business, I kind of have to make it all up like I have, and I don't mind doing that. It just means that it, it just feels squishy right now, until I have someone to work with. And so I can, I mean, I understand. I watched some ri condo videos over the over the break, and I think that was useful, just to, I mean, because everyone else will have seen them also, right? So, like, she's the paradigm. But the other thing I realized I have one craniosacral client, this just marvelous young woman. It's really fun to meet with her, and I realized, like, I do have that business. And I, you know, it slammed shut when I broke my collarbone because I couldn't practice. It's It's not like that work that work pays Okay, and it's very nourishing. It's not like massage where you get worn out. And I think what I realized is that I do love that work, and I can actually do both. And I already have a cranial website. And so it's like I kind of need to be just in terms of, like, income, I like, it's like I need to kind of be building the one off the other off the other, like that. And so part of what's going on in my brain is I realized my website is, you know, it was like, it's like a placeholder. I never, I never. I didn't have a lot of energy in it. I just needed to get something up. And my mind is actually thinking about how to rewrite parts of it, or just use a new template and make it look kind of fresh and clean as I continue to work on the decluttering thing, recognizing that's going to be a little it's actually going to be a little slower than I thought to launch that said, I have a meeting with Jess later today to work on my offerings, and I've written them like, there's a bunch of stuff I wrote, and I have a couple of communities that I can do like I have, like the friend community that I can do a Soft letter to, but also my temple, yeah, yeah. So, like, I'm down. I just like, I think also, before I launch the decluttering, I want to have, like, some kind of rubric for myself, like, what am I doing?
Jessica Abel (she/her)
04:54Yeah, I think that's smart, like, having some kind of process map. Here's what we do, you know. So people can ask, like, well, how's this work, you know? And you're like, well, first we do this, then we do this. We need that can be pretty loose, yeah, but if you have some sense of what that is, and I think the one of the things we talked about is how, well we talked about this multiple times, the way that doing decluttering is like a therapeutic practice to a certain extent, and it's not cranial, but it's like, oh,
ri
05:24it's not
Jessica Abel (she/her)
05:25related to the energy of it
ri
05:28totally. I mean, everybody feels better when their space is organized and you don't have stuff around. I mean, it takes our attention. I'm aware of this, and I'm also capable of artic, Sorry, I interrupted you.
Jessica Abel (she/her)
05:44Oh, you're funny. I was just gonna say, like, I think that the main thing that, you know, the way that I teach business is through the MVP, just doing a thing, finding a client and doing it. You've done it once, do it two or three more times, and you are absolutely Declutter. You know what I mean? Like, you just right, right? And so before you have a website, you have a warm letter, like, you don't necessarily have this in, like, this formalized place. I mean, I think it's worth working on this with Jess and, like, having the words and, you know, whatever, but it's like the you're gonna learn so much from doing this a few times and talking about it with people. Yeah, that's gonna influence everything you do about your messaging and how you put this together. And it's also gonna give you the confidence to be like in public, like, Hey, I'm a declutter this is a thing I do, right? So that's why I'm always like, just, just go get a client. Just talk to somebody the warm
ri
06:42letter. So the warm letter, I mean, okay, I will work on my offerings with Jess because it helps me think through, like, but the warm letter, I could just do that almost tomorrow. Yeah,
Jessica Abel (she/her)
06:54absolutely. And you can send it to three people. You don't have to send it to, like, 100 people you know. You can send it to a few people who you know will be interested in empathetic you know, possible clients, or people who might know clients like, you know, start small. Just keep you know, obviously, keep a checklist of who you've sent it to and what's going on with them. But like, you know, you can, there's a feeling like, when you start a business, like, I've got to start a business, you know, like, and you have putting on a show or whatever, and that's not necessary, like, you can just kind of sneak in the side, you know, try a couple things, and then go from there, See what happens.
Jennifer Catalano
07:39Yeah. Okay.
ri
07:42I mean, I think part of yeah, there's like, I do have a tendency to have like, oh, everyone I know is actually really competent with their stuff. And I do know a bunch of people who are competent with their stuff, like, they just take care of it. And then the Yeah. And I have a, I have a psychologist, psychologist, psychiatrist. Anyway, she works with ADHD people, and she's like, these are your people. But
lisbethf
08:06that's
ri
08:07like a whole specialty the ad
Jessica Abel (she/her)
08:10Well, I feel the same way, you know, like I have many, many ADHD people and and autistic people in my world who sign up for my programs and work with me and stuff. And I do not have any training, you know, but I have a lifetime of experience with it through working with people and especially teaching, you know, like I can remember the first student who told me they were autistic, you know, give me a letter, like, from them and their parents, like, this is what's going on, and here's what you can expect. And it was, like, a really big revelation, you know, a few years into my career, yeah, oh, that's what's going on here. Now she was very clearly autistic. And I'd worked with other people who I looked back and like, oh, that person was autistic too, but, like, in a much quieter way. Yeah, probably who knows, right? I don't want to diagnose anyone but, but you you realize that, like, you know, that I did have skills for it, and I had to pay attention to that, you know. So I think that what I want to say here is, like, in terms of decluttering, I don't think you need to go out and get specific training for working with ADHD people, but you just need to understand. I do think you could read a book or two about like, aimed at people with ADHD for organizing their life. Like, what do they recommend? Yeah, you know, what are the things that and ask your friend who is a therapist, she'll know the right books, and say, like, you know, what are the sort of techniques that they recommend? You could incorporate those. If somebody comes to you and, like, I need to organize, but I have ADHD, you go, like, Okay, here's some specific techniques that work for some people with ADHD, right? Could incorporate these, right,
ri
09:58right, right? Yeah. So that's actually useful. Like, where I notice, like, I have, like, oh, I can't, I can't because I don't know it. Just, like, actually, that's an invitation to inform myself and find out whether that's, like, a chunk that's actually I can inform myself about. And therefore, and I think with both ADHD and autism, I mean, I mean,
Jessica Abel (she/her)
10:16medical practice, yeah,
ri
10:19what? You don't have to be
Jessica Abel (she/her)
10:20a medical practitioner for this.
ri
10:24Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's where I am. And also my creative work is happening so in various so love it, yeah.
Jessica Abel (she/her)
10:36So, yeah, I love if this week you would send out a warm letter or two and see what happens, see what people say. And the fact that you have friends who are really good at this is great. They can give you some feedback on how they do things or how it lands for them. But obviously they're not your customers. That's fine, you know the, I can guarantee you, like 90% of the people you know would love to have an organizer, even if they don't need, need it, you know,
ri
11:09yeah, yeah, yeah,
lisbethf
11:14yeah. Cool, yeah.
Jessica Abel (she/her)
11:15Okay, cool. All right. Thank you. Yeah. No problem. Jennifer, I heard you there. Do you want to verbally check in in case you need to leave for health reasons? You can leave your screen off if you want.
Jennifer Catalano
11:33Yeah, thanks. So no. I mean, I think I can do short periods of time. I just realized I need to, like, it's like, you get an allotment. Look at the screen, and I need to be judicious with that allotment. I actually don't have a whole lot to Well, that's, I don't know. I don't think I have a whole lot to check in on. My focus is more. I've had limited capacity, and so my focus right now is, at least this week is on my professional life,
Jessica Mehring
12:04my
Jennifer Catalano
12:05creative life, and it's all very connected to this, but it's kind of like seeing processes through that I've already set into motion, rather than like creating the process right now. So I'm not, I'm not sure of a whole lot to talk about. I mean, that's,
Jessica Abel (she/her)
12:28that's fine. I think that's just sort of validate your understanding that, like, when you see that you have limited capacity making choices about what you're going to do with it is a really smart thing to do, like, you know, like, having a moment ago, like, Okay, this is the situation. What am I going to do? Yeah, it's really smart, yeah.
Jennifer Catalano
12:47And that's kind of what happened last week. I was like, oh, it's the first week back from break. I feel rested. And I did a bunch of creative stuff and tried to also do a bunch of work stuff, and it was just too much. And partly, like, there was flu in the household, so there was, you know, but the the factors are, what they are, and it was, it was too much, so just reacting to that this week and simplifying and, yeah, it will be fine, um, but I am continuing with my tracker and like things are plugging along, even though I'm not great creating new things in my creative life this week.
Jessica Abel (she/her)
13:21That's great. Yeah, good to hear. Jess. How about you?
Jessica Mehring
13:27Yeah? So, based on my goals from last week, I did come up with a bunch of topics for my sub stack on, well, a bunch of ideas for posts for my sub stack on the topic of personal branding, and actually got two of those articles written this week scheduled for next week, and that felt good, but like I had something to say there. And yeah, we'll see where that goes. The sub stack thing is so interesting because it's it's organically growing, and people are signing up for it like perfect strangers, which is wonderful. Perfect Strangers are finding my sub stack and signing up for it, and people are starting to mention it in notes and things, which feels really good to have some traction there and have that kind of be my, my home for some of my, my thinking stuff.
Jessica Abel (she/her)
14:24Yeah, well, you were talking about for, you know, a couple months, like trying to develop a lead magnet. Need to develop this email list, develop a lead magnet. This is a lead magnet. Just the writing itself, just the thoughts themselves, you know, not the tool or the whatever. There's no kind of, you know, there's no quid pro quo. It's like you sign up for the thing because you like the thing, and the people then who are following you, and especially if they're engaging and not, you know, making notes and so on. You know, that is the list you want to be developing for this work, like they're literally those people. Yeah, so that's great. It
Jessica Mehring
15:06feels it feels good. It's like, in my bones, it feels really good. It's a safe place for me to land my thinking and write in this particular way, and people are responding to it feels really good. And the crossover between that audience and my horizon, peak audience continues to be interesting, because I continue to have people reaching out to me for thoughts on AI, which is not the thing I want to be known for, but unfortunately, is the thing that I am known for. And it's, it's because I've done a lot of research in that space, and I have strong opinions about it, and I'm not anti AI, but I'm also not pro AI. So I have, I can have these conversations. Yeah, I was interviewed for a podcast last week on the topic of being human in writing in the age of AI, and that stirred a bunch of conversation on substack. And anyway, it was, it's such a weird thing.
Jessica Abel (she/her)
16:16It is a really weird thing. But I do think that because of like the people you want to be working with as coaching clients, and this is separate from Horizon peak, you know, the the business side, but the people you want to be having these conversations with, they're going to be thinking about AI in terms of, how do I use AI to increase my output, of my thought leadership. Yeah. But the danger, of course, is that it becomes generic, right? Like, if they don't use it properly, if they aren't, it
Jessica Mehring
16:51doesn't have their soul in it. If they
Jessica Abel (she/her)
16:53right, if they don't, like, use their own material as the core material that they are AI ing on, like they are going to really end up with garbage, exactly.
Jessica Mehring
17:05And actually, this podcast interview was, it ended up being really good because I was able to articulate that. I was able to articulate, you know, if you're going to use AI, here are specific ways I recommend that you use AI so your human soul remains in your writing. Yeah, and
Jessica Abel (she/her)
17:24can you get a copy of the recording from the podcaster?
Jessica Mehring
17:29I'm sure they're going to be putting the podcast out in a few weeks anyway, so I'll be able to, you know.
Jessica Abel (she/her)
17:36But if you get, if you get that, run it through Ri and like, you know, pull out the quotes and stuff, pull out the specifics, write an article that goes along with it, and then link to the podcast. You know for sure,
Jessica Mehring
17:50yeah. I always, yeah, yeah. I always write an article, and it's been on the horizon peak site, because that's primarily where I'm doing the podcast interviews. I write a blog, kind of, recapping what we talked about and then linking out to the podcast. So that's already on the schedule. But yeah, I think that more articles are going to come out of that interview for my personal brand, which is exciting, yeah,
Jessica Abel (she/her)
18:13because I think that, you know, again, like people who are trying to create a personal brand, they're trying to be out there doing the thing and, like, showing what they are thinking about, they are going to be using AI. If they're tech executives, they're going to be using it so talking about how, like, how to stand out and also be able to make things more efficient with AI, putting those things together that actually is also a differentiating factor for you.
Jessica Mehring
18:40Yeah, I think, yeah, there's a lot that's going to come out of this. So,
Jessica Abel (she/her)
18:45yeah, that was exciting. Ri, that's a great idea. Run it through AI the good way and the bad way, and show the difference
Jessica Mehring
18:51seriously. Yeah, that's that would
Jessica Abel (she/her)
18:53be a funny one. That'd be good, yeah.
Jessica Mehring
18:56And I've done posts where I take really bad AI output and kind of break it down. And those tend to get some responses, which is always a good thing, to get engagement. But
Jessica Abel (she/her)
19:07again, if you this is your thought leadership, literally, this is what you're doing, is creating your personal brand and saying, like, here's what I did, you know, like, I was on this podcast, and then I take this thing and I put it, you know, and I'm like, using AI to speed up the process of creating this post, you know, this article, but if I just do this, you end up with this garbage and so, like, that's not going to help me at all. Like it won't help you. Won't help me. Just adds to the noise. But if I do this, then, so like, you have this whole kind of story to tell around that that could be really interesting, and I think would get a lot of traction.
Jessica Mehring
19:46Yeah, I'm actually going to copy and paste ri note here into my notes. Awesome. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I really
Jessica Abel (she/her)
19:58think, like, I think that the, you know, the initial stab at, like, helping people with writing, like, didn't really land in the way that you want it to. But I think partly because the like, what are they writing, and why are they writing, wasn't there yet, yeah, and that's what seems to be coming out of this, you know, conversation is like, now you have, like, a thing they're trying to do. And if people have a mission, they have an outcome they want, which is, now I have a personal brand which is known for x, that is something that people will get engaged in and will spend time on where, sort of generally, like, I just want to write more stuff. You know, they may kind of vaguely think that, but that's not going to get them spent investing the time and the money.
Jessica Mehring
20:52You're absolutely right, yeah, yeah. So I think you're, I think I'm I'm finding my way to the right direction, and I'm glad that I'm continuing to have these conversations. And honestly, that's another thing on my list of good things is my calendar is full of networking conversations, unfortunately, not like sales conversations, but networking conversations with with such a wide variety of people, and so many good things are coming out of these conversations. I'm getting so inspired so many ideas. You know, I'm broadening my network. And it's funny, because up until now, I've really carefully managed my calendar I can only handle, you know, so many meetings in a day. I need at least one day a week where I have no calls was just because they're exhausting for me, but I'm not feeling exhausted with my calendar full. I've never had so many meetings on my calendar as I do right now, but they are all networking and no pressure and just getting to know each other, and at the end of the day, I'm not exhausted by that. So it's really, it's it's really making me kind of think about the last few years and managing my energy, and why I had to do that, and what's the difference between then and now. And I just, I think really good things are coming out of this really hard time for me. I'm learning so much about who I am, how I need to show up in the world, what people need from me, from the world. It's, man, it's still a really hard time. I still don't have any leads coming in. It sucks, but, man, I'm learning so much, and that makes me feel really good.
Jessica Abel (she/her)
22:42Yeah? I mean, I think that the interesting thing is going to be how, like, I think that over the next few weeks, this will evolve into opportunities of various kinds, but they may not look like the ones you're looking for
Jessica Mehring
22:55exactly, yeah? And I'm just, I'm staying open to it,
Jessica Abel (she/her)
22:58yeah? I mean, you gotta, right? That's me, okay. Well, sounds good, yeah, one point I want you to walk us through your system for networking, because it sounds really cool. Yeah, it's
Jessica Mehring
23:15I did create a system finally, and I should have done this forever ago. I did not prioritize business development nearly enough in the last 10 years, I did not system
Jessica Abel (she/her)
23:26in everyone's world.
Jessica Mehring
23:28Who does. But now I have a system. There are checklists, yeah, yeah,
lisbethf
23:34yeah. I'd
Jessica Mehring
23:35be happy to share that at any point, but I think
ri
23:38I want to see that well,
Jessica Abel (she/her)
23:42we may have time today, I don't even know, but let's um, Lisbeth, Elizabeth, are you there? I haven't seen you yet. You're logged on, but haven't heard a word so
lisbethf
24:00well, Ah, now I have to do another thing to unmute. Didn't work, the usual icon, hi, hi. I know why. I've had technical difficulties today. Okay, I'm here.
Jessica Abel (she/her)
24:15Great. So what's what's happened with you in this last week? It's
lisbethf
24:19been good and also really horrible. It's been a mixture. And so the good part is that I've set my goals. I'm still chugging along with trying to get this application in by tomorrow. Half of it's completely done, more than half. But there are a couple things, a couple loose ends. I was I don't like this whole like ordering images, lining up 10 JPEGs, making sure the pixels are exactly the way they want them to be. So that's what I have to do now. But I have the content. All the other content is pretty much done. So that means I'm working a lot of hours on it, and when I'm not working on that, I realize what it's doing. It's like giving me this intense focus. And in some ways, that's really helpful, because the part that's so challenging and that takes away a lot of my capacity is, of course, my husband's situation, and he's very, very sick now, so it's kind of like this pressure of every hour I'm not there, or every then I'm worrying about him and knowing what's going to happen pretty soon is that, yeah, so, so in that way, it's a very strange time. Yeah,
Jessica Abel (she/her)
25:51yeah. So I'm living
lisbethf
25:54in the now. I'm just trying to live in the now, and this application that I'm just going to send, no matter like how far. It might not be perfect, but I'm going to send it, and you know, it's not going to happen for another year. So I see it as a way of looking forward to something. And even if I don't get into this thing, I could reapply, or I can use it for the residency that I really hope that I will go to. I mean, I doubt that my husband will live more than a couple of weeks. So, so maybe it's, it's, it's a good thing tonight, I'm away in April, so so that that's about it really,
Jessica Abel (she/her)
26:43really hard. And, you know, my heart goes out to you. I think it's, you know, the situation you've been in for so long is that you've had to figure out how to put your life together when the last phase isn't done, right, you know? And you just have to live with a sort of continuation of that while you're sort of at the same time figuring out who you are and what are you going to, you know, do, and how you're gonna spend your time, and all those things. So, yeah, yeah,
lisbethf
27:16and the before and after. I mean, when you're in the now, it's like, there is no before and after, yeah, but, you know, it's really helping me to do my little lists and and then when I don't have them, I get a little like, whoa, whoa, where's my Yeah, where's my little rubber stamp? And I was thinking about what Ri was saying about the cleaning helping people organize, and this whole thing of diagnosis. I mean, sometimes I think, God, I have ADHD. But you know, I think these diagnostic criteria, they really are kind of more fluid, because so many things can look like each other, and certainly the concentration problems cut across like post traumatic stress and all kinds of other reactions, or be being in a life situation like mine, which messes with your sleep and everything else. So I think there are a lot of people out there who could use that kind of help, and who don't know how to even ask for it, because, you know, if you're in a protracted situation of sort of barely like figuring out how to clean your house, yeah, I can really empathize with that.
Jessica Abel (she/her)
28:41Yeah, yeah, I think that's right. It's a again, it's like, how you know, part of your attention is always somewhere else. Yeah,
lisbethf
28:50it
Jessica Abel (she/her)
28:51needs to be. I mean, it's a good thing, but it's somewhere else. It's just really hard, really painful.
lisbethf
28:59And it's the same thing, if you have kids that are not doing well, or, you know what, it's like, all right, you're if they're always on your mind, kind of like, okay, have they broken a leg today? Or, like, what? What are they doing out there? Yeah,
Jessica Abel (she/her)
29:15yeah, yeah. So, well, I mean, I wish you the best of the luck with this application, and I think it's great to have something to focus on like this while you are going through this really intense phase with your husband. Maybe this is too much, but it's like, you know,
lisbethf
29:37it's a little too much. I mean, I really need but I
Jessica Abel (she/her)
29:40would definitely think this thing in tomorrow, I would look for something low intensity to keep your attention, like you work in creative work, or, you know, have a daily check in or do something so you're still anchoring to yourself and your own sort of generative work while this is going on in a way that's flexible, so you can be there for him. But,
lisbethf
30:06yeah, yeah, what was that do? Danes, I didn't see it do. Danes, what do? Saunas.
Jessica Abel (she/her)
30:11Oh
lisbethf
30:12yes, in a big, big way, we are the big, not quite as much as the finish with they they can out do anybody they're they're experts. I heard this was a kind of a Scandinavian joke, but I think it's, I think it's true that there were some Finnish people who were working in Addis Abel, and they, which, of course, is very, very hot, and they made a sauna. It's
Jessica Mehring
30:38like they made a community building.
lisbethf
30:42It's like they're crazy.
Jessica Abel (she/her)
30:47Yeah, I'm not a big fan of overheating myself. So, yeah,
lisbethf
30:52you've just been honest. Okay, it
Jessica Abel (she/her)
30:55gets pretty cold. Okay,
lisbethf
30:57there you go. Okay, ah, that makes it surprisingly
Jennifer Catalano
31:00cold in winter. Yeah, it's like, I mean, it's not Scandinavian cold, but it's, it's quite chilly,
lisbethf
31:07ah, so maybe it does, yeah, well, lived, sorry, I'll spare you the jokes, the finished jokes. You know, we have them. Yeah? I Yeah, okay,
Jessica Abel (she/her)
31:25all right, so that wraps up. Check ins, Jess, do you want to show us your system? Like, let me I can do sharing screen.
Jessica Mehring
31:42All right, can you guys see my notion? Okay, yep,
Jessica Abel (she/her)
31:47okay,
Jessica Mehring
31:48so 
I built myself a dashboard here, and then I have tasks in my task management system that prompt me right now on a daily basis to come in here. But you know, when things settle down, and I don't have to be doing this as, you know, frequently as I'm doing it right now, the task will be probably, you know, weekly or bi weekly, but I built this dashboard, and I have this daily action tracker. This is filtered to this week, but you can see doing it every day, and these keep me on track for what I'm doing. We open this up. I've got all of the tasks that for me count toward business development that is, you know, posting on social for awareness, posting for trust. Following up I have, you'll see in a minute, a database of people that I am trying to, you know, nurture the relationship, strategic commenting, there's a couple of and you'll see this places I go on LinkedIn to strategically comment on people's posts, targeted outreach. Again, this is that list of people like warm contacts that I'm nurturing cold outreach. These are people that I don't know, that don't know me yet on LinkedIn that I am sending connection requests to or DMS to, and then have another database where I'm keeping track of all those. And
+2
I built myself a dashboard here, and then I have tasks in my task management system that prompt me right now on a daily basis to come in here. But you know, when things settle down, and I don't have to be doing this as, you know, frequently as I'm doing it right now, the task will be probably, you know, weekly or bi weekly, but I built this dashboard, and I have this daily action tracker. This is filtered to this week, but you can see doing it every day, and these keep me on track for what I'm doing. We open this up. I've got all of the tasks that for me count toward business development that is, you know, posting on social for awareness, posting for trust. Following up I have, you'll see in a minute, a database of people that I am trying to, you know, nurture the relationship, strategic commenting, there's a couple of and you'll see this places I go on LinkedIn to strategically comment on people's posts, targeted outreach. Again, this is that list of people like warm contacts that I'm nurturing cold outreach. These are people that I don't know, that don't know me yet on LinkedIn that I am sending connection requests to or DMS to, and then have another database where I'm keeping track of all those. And Jessica Abel (she/her)
33:29you did a bunch of research to figure out who those people should be, yep.
Jessica Mehring
33:32And 
you'll see further down on this page here, in just a minute, kind of how I'm tracking all that. And then I have I'm a member of several slack communities, so I check it off. If I go through my slack communities and I look at specific channels for specific things, I can check that off. So that's just my daily action tracker. These are the tasks that I'm trying to do on a daily basis for business development. But then I am managing a lot of that data here below as well. So my pipeline tracking an air table. This is just an air table embed here, if it'll show up, try to refresh sometimes air table needs a little kick in the pants. There we go. So I have this, all this data in air table. It's connected to some other systems in air table. That's why I keep it there. So as people become clients, then I move them over to the client side of my air table. But this just helps me keep track of where the conversations are in time and who I need to reach out to. I have triggers, you know, remind me 
to connect on a certain date, that'll trigger an email to me that day to follow up with them, and I'm just tracking my my warm connections. These are previous clients or referral partners, people who know me, who've worked with me, who know of my work, at least, who I am trying to maintain the relationship with. And then I have my cold outreach database here. And these are new people who are entering my world because I'm reaching out to them on LinkedIn. I'm just sending connection requests with no note, just, you know, sending the connection request cold and marking them here, and then I have reminders to follow up, you know, five or so days out, and I'm checking to see if they accepted my connection request, and if they didn't, did they look at my profile? Have they been active on LinkedIn and just kind of making thoughtful decisions about how I want to move forward with these people? And yeah, I kind of so if you look
+2
you'll see further down on this page here, in just a minute, kind of how I'm tracking all that. And then I have I'm a member of several slack communities, so I check it off. If I go through my slack communities and I look at specific channels for specific things, I can check that off. So that's just my daily action tracker. These are the tasks that I'm trying to do on a daily basis for business development. But then I am managing a lot of that data here below as well. So my pipeline tracking an air table. This is just an air table embed here, if it'll show up, try to refresh sometimes air table needs a little kick in the pants. There we go. So I have this, all this data in air table. It's connected to some other systems in air table. That's why I keep it there. So as people become clients, then I move them over to the client side of my air table. But this just helps me keep track of where the conversations are in time and who I need to reach out to. I have triggers, you know, remind me +1
to connect on a certain date, that'll trigger an email to me that day to follow up with them, and I'm just tracking my my warm connections. These are previous clients or referral partners, people who know me, who've worked with me, who know of my work, at least, who I am trying to maintain the relationship with. And then I have my cold outreach database here. And these are new people who are entering my world because I'm reaching out to them on LinkedIn. I'm just sending connection requests with no note, just, you know, sending the connection request cold and marking them here, and then I have reminders to follow up, you know, five or so days out, and I'm checking to see if they accepted my connection request, and if they didn't, did they look at my profile? Have they been active on LinkedIn and just kind of making thoughtful decisions about how I want to move forward with these people? And yeah, I kind of so if you look Jessica Abel (she/her)
35:58at them and they haven't checked out, or they looked at your profile and they haven't accepted, or whatever, then you're like,
Jessica Mehring
36:04not they're not interested. I'm just going to let them go and I mark them archived. Or, you know, if they haven't been, if they haven't been active on LinkedIn since I sent that request, you know, blog them as give them more time, and
Jessica Abel (she/her)
36:22once they accept you, then you reach out and with a DM,
Jessica Mehring
36:26yeah, 
that's the plan is, once they've accepted again, I gave them a few days, so it felt like I'm springing a sales message on them. But my plan is, this is a pretty new part of my process, but my plan is to send them a message that's kind of like this that I this was from a program that I joined something very light touch that is not a super salesy message. And like I said, I wait a few days after they accept, but I'm trying to be thoughtful and human about my cold outreach approach, and this is just how I'm how I'm tracking that, yeah, and then I've got, you know, my editorial calendar, so I know what I'm posting, where and when. So if you know that's part of my checklist in the daily action tracker, is, did I post anything today? I can refer to that very quickly here. This is why I love notion is I can just embed things everywhere. And
+2
that's the plan is, once they've accepted again, I gave them a few days, so it felt like I'm springing a sales message on them. But my plan is, this is a pretty new part of my process, but my plan is to send them a message that's kind of like this that I this was from a program that I joined something very light touch that is not a super salesy message. And like I said, I wait a few days after they accept, but I'm trying to be thoughtful and human about my cold outreach approach, and this is just how I'm how I'm tracking that, yeah, and then I've got, you know, my editorial calendar, so I know what I'm posting, where and when. So if you know that's part of my checklist in the daily action tracker, is, did I post anything today? I can refer to that very quickly here. This is why I love notion is I can just embed things everywhere. And Jessica Abel (she/her)
37:32is this the actual content, or is this just a calendar? This
Jessica Mehring
37:36actually has the content in it?
ri
37:42Yep. I cool.
Jessica Mehring
37:44I live in notion. I track everything here.
Jessica Abel (she/her)
37:46Yeah, me too differently. You know, everybody does it differently, so that's always interesting.
Jessica Mehring
37:51And 
then LinkedIn lists have been really key for me. Strategic commenting has been really good for just getting on certain people's radars. And I've only learned this recently, and I wish I had known this years ago, but you can almost create these saved lists of people in LinkedIn using this hack where, if you go and you do a search in LinkedIn, you use all the, you know, all the filters that you want to use to find a certain segment of people, and you sort that by last, you know, last post date or whatever, and you just copy that URL that that's like a saved list. So I can go in, you know, I have all these different lists for different reasons. For example, you know, my old clients, existing or previous clients are all here in this list, and I can just quickly go through and see if anybody's posted anything that I want to comment on, and it makes that strategic commenting so much easier.
+2
then LinkedIn lists have been really key for me. Strategic commenting has been really good for just getting on certain people's radars. And I've only learned this recently, and I wish I had known this years ago, but you can almost create these saved lists of people in LinkedIn using this hack where, if you go and you do a search in LinkedIn, you use all the, you know, all the filters that you want to use to find a certain segment of people, and you sort that by last, you know, last post date or whatever, and you just copy that URL that that's like a saved list. So I can go in, you know, I have all these different lists for different reasons. For example, you know, my old clients, existing or previous clients are all here in this list, and I can just quickly go through and see if anybody's posted anything that I want to comment on, and it makes that strategic commenting so much easier. Jessica Abel (she/her)
39:00Yeah, very cool,
Jessica Mehring
39:01yeah. 
But it all lives here in this dashboard, and I have my daily tracker checklist, and it makes things so much more systematic and just easier to easier to go through and do each day. And the end point is critical for me. What I was finding, since business development is pretty much all I'm doing right now, is there was never an end point at the end of the day, I would feel like I got nothing done and just just like a swirl, you know? And having this tracker, I'm checking things off as I go, and at the end of the day, it feels like I did something and there was an end point to it. So this has been a game changer for me, with my mindset. I've only
+1
But it all lives here in this dashboard, and I have my daily tracker checklist, and it makes things so much more systematic and just easier to easier to go through and do each day. And the end point is critical for me. What I was finding, since business development is pretty much all I'm doing right now, is there was never an end point at the end of the day, I would feel like I got nothing done and just just like a swirl, you know? And having this tracker, I'm checking things off as I go, and at the end of the day, it feels like I did something and there was an end point to it. So this has been a game changer for me, with my mindset. I've only Jessica Abel (she/her)
39:54been doing this, hopefully doing more stuff, because you are being very specific about what those things are.
Jessica Mehring
40:00Yeah, it feels less swirly, and a lot more just process. And you can see, I've only been doing this for a couple of weeks, but it has completely changed how I feel at the end of the day.
Jessica Abel (she/her)
40:16Great. Love it. Thanks for sharing that that was really super helpful. Hopefully
Jessica Mehring
40:21it's interesting. And got some ideas for yourself.
Jessica Abel (she/her)
40:26Yeah? I mean, you know, we all need up our game in networking and whatever that looks like, whatever platform that is, whatever you know, style it is, like I've done, Michelle Warner's networking that pays, course. Which I recommend, by the way, it's really good. And she has this, like, very specific, like, way of determining, like, how many contacts you should be maintaining. And, like, you know, what the she has, like, a five day system for, like, what are the like, little things you can do over five days to just kind of keep everything rolling, keep it going, which is nice for, like, when you're maintaining but this sort of, like, you like, can't pull in, that's a whole other deal. Yeah,
Jessica Mehring
41:12yeah. And, you know, you saw that I have some of the data in air table, and that was kind of scrambling me too, because I have so much data in air table for specific kinds of data tracking. But then you see how much I track in notion, too. And I'm because this is really all I'm doing. I'm able to sit and think about how I actually want this to work going forward, you know, and I'm not just piecing things together. I'm actually able to think very strategically and thoughtfully about how this is going to look in maintenance mode. And
lisbethf
41:51again,
Jessica Mehring
41:52this is just a blessing of this really hard time, because I'm finally building something that I can maintain strategically over time and hopefully never find myself in this position again.
Jessica Abel (she/her)
42:07Yeah, yeah. I think that's great. I think that's really building resilience, you know, yeah, excellent. Can
Jennifer Catalano
42:16I ask some questions? Of course. Well, first of all, I'm curious what you use, what you use airtable for, and how you have, what data you have in there, because I'm, I don't know. I just have some curiosities. I kind of want to use it for different things, and I haven't really dived in totally. And I'm also curious if you want to teach this to anyone, because I can think of at least one person that I work with that could really benefit from this, and might really appreciate you advising her on setting up something like this, if that's something you're interested in. I mean, I can name this, but I like, I know someone who needs this and knows she needs it. They
Jessica Mehring
43:00need the like pipeline management, business development, kind of, I would say, them, or just a system,
Jennifer Catalano
43:10the thoughtful network and contact management system, you know, kind of bringing it out of something that's organic and just part of the flow of everyday life into something that is a little bit systematized on a computer, which I saw and what you just shared with us, yeah,
Jessica Mehring
43:29worked
Jennifer Catalano
43:30for that to my for myself, but I'm not there at all, and I don't need to be right now. So anyway, just throwing it out there, if that's you,
Jessica Mehring
43:39yeah, I love my systems really do. And to answer your question about air table, I was using air table before. I was using notion actually. So some of it just continued to live there. But what I was tracking in air table and less so now. So it has me questioning some things, but I was tracking, you know, which individuals I was putting on projects. I was tracking how much time was being spent on the projects. You know, by Whom would the breakdown of time was not for the purpose of correcting my team. I have a great team. It was for the purpose of figuring out if a client was profitable. For me, so I have, I have all this data in air table that very quickly tells me if a client is profitable or costing me money to continue working with. And for me, I never had so many clients that I had to worry about that a lot. I it was always, you know, a handful of high paying clients. That's how I like to work. But it helps me to set boundaries, to know what's profitable and what's not. And it also kind of kicks me in the pants sometimes when I know I should let a certain client go, but I really love them, or whatever it is, I want to continue working with them, to have the numbers right in front of me saying, this is costing you money to work with this person or do this kind of project, that I need that impetus to make those hard decisions, absolutely.
Jennifer Catalano
45:24Yeah, so that's probably you're almost using it like a spreadsheet in that kind of like you could have done that spreadsheet, but air table is a little bit more
Jessica Mehring
45:34robust. Yes, for sure. Yeah. There are certain formulas that I can only do in air table that are really not possible in notion. And so I, you know, track a lot of stuff in notion, but then Once somebody becomes a client and I'm working on a project with them, then I start tracking some data in air table to keep track of that stuff over time. Yeah, I've not been using it nearly enough, and a lot of it is, I haven't had a lot of clients for the last couple of years. It's been a, you know, really small set of clients, and my team is amazing, so I don't have to track a ton of things with them. So now I'm kind of questioning, do I want to keep just I love data, I love data, but do I need to track all of this? I'm thinking, Yeah, I
Jessica Abel (she/her)
46:26mean, I think that the profitability tracking sounds very valuable, no matter what. But the thing, I love data too, and I love tracking stuff, but, like, the thing that I figured out at some point was like, if I'm tracking something and I have no intention of taking action on it. I should not be tracking that thing.
Jessica Mehring
46:46Yeah, yeah. And it, like I said, it does help me make some hard decisions. But,
Jessica Abel (she/her)
46:52yeah, stuff with like conversion rates on like sales pages and things, and I'm like, but I I'm not going to get in there and, like, use hot jar to figure out which section and, you know, optimize for, like, another point, oh, two, 5% of whatever. Like, it's not my volume is so low that that would make no difference in my life. You know, if it was a high volume business, then it would be different. But, you know, I realized that was a big breakthrough for me realizing, like, unless you have a high volume business, that kind of, like conversion optimization stuff is mostly a waste of time.
Jessica Mehring
47:29Yeah, I think that's such a differentiator that people are not, either they're not aware of or they're not talking about, is that if you, if you have a high volume business, you have to operate differently than if you have a low volume, high, high, you know, whatever high ticket business like mine is low volume. I ticket. I work with clients that have big budgets, and I work with very few of them. It's a totally different model than those
Jessica Abel (she/her)
48:01realistically, like it's the only model that works well for micro businesses. Like, if the smaller your businesses, the more that is required in order to be to have a human life, yeah, you just can't like the ways that a large volume business has to function to do well, require tons of people time, and the margins are razor thin. So you know, you need to have a much larger business. If you have a small business, you can't you can't afford it, yeah.
Jessica Mehring
48:32Well, it makes me look at engagement on social media differently, too. That's been a conversation a lot about, is this working on this platform? Is this working on that platform? And people look at likes and comments and reposts to judge, to judge whether something is working for me, it's the DMS or the emails. That's how I know something is hitting home. As I start getting emails, I start getting DMS from my posts, yeah, and that's, can people aren't talking about that kind of engagement on social, but that's how a low volume high,
Jessica Abel (she/her)
49:11you know, this is, this is, like, my thought leadership. This is my topic. Is, like, this thing of like, what, you know, the things that the platforms want us to do feed the platforms. They don't help you, you know, like getting lots of engagement and likes and, you know, people commenting on your posts or whatever. That keeps people on the platform, and that's all they care about. And so that's what they're promoting,
Jessica Mehring
49:31yep. But this is the benefit of being thoughtful about our businesses, right? So we know to be tracking the things that matter.
Jessica Abel (she/her)
49:45Yeah, and there's always a little slop, but it's okay, yeah? Well, that was really valuable. Thank you. Jess, thanks for sharing. All right. Everybody have a top three for the week?
Jessica Mehring
49:59Let's see, do I have a top three for the week?
Jessica Abel (she/her)
50:06A top one is fine. I
Jessica Mehring
50:12think I'm going to keep my my top three and keep working my top three from last week, which is I actually did move the topic ideation system into a it's not a one pager, but close. I can show that to you guys next week. So just continue making sure that's refined. Coming up with more sub stack posts. Got the topics now. I need to do more writing, and then my Wednesday, Thursday night creative habit, excellent. Ri, how about you
ri
50:50at least draft a warm letter, and then, sort of like a sub of, sub of that is come up with a list of where I'm going to send it, like, who I'll share it with, and also figure out who can read my warm letter, like, just to make sure the tone is okay.
ri
51:15I mean, the other things are like, I have two creative projects going, and they're just keep going, basically, yeah,
Jessica Abel (she/her)
51:24I
ri
51:25think there's an the low bar open mic that I'm going to sign up for, which is I'm going to perform in public. So we'll see how that goes. Cool. Look
Jessica Abel (she/her)
51:41forward to hearing about that one.
Jessica Mehring
51:48Yeah, yeah. All right.
Jessica Abel (she/her)
51:49Cool. Jennifer, how about you?
Jennifer Catalano
51:55It's really some of these work milestones. I'm actually I have to get some SOPs out the door for one of my jobs, which is just coincidentally related to what we're doing here. And then, I'm in a process of pivoting. My position with another job and there's a lot of thought work that goes into that so that's really my top one, and everything else.
Jessica Abel (she/her)
52:27Yeah, well, that's a goal, right? Make it a quieter week. Exactly.
Jennifer Catalano
52:30Great. I will, like, I'm actually, I'm so energized by the business development stuff, because part of my pivoting is also like stepping back with something. So I'm like, it's like knocking on the door of my consciousness. Like, once some of this stuff is out of the way, that's hopefully going to move up some having
Jessica Mehring
52:50another call with me if you want to talk about, you know, what I showed you. And we can talk about your friend who needs that kind of help too. And maybe we can both solidify our thinking. That
Jennifer Catalano
53:00sounds lovely. I'll reach out once I've passed these milestones and have a little more space.
Jessica Mehring
53:04So sorry, guys. I have to jump to another call, so I'm gonna
Jessica Abel (she/her)
53:08Yep, see you next time. Bye. Lisbeth, how about you?
lisbethf
53:22Okay? Well, as I said, I'm sending this application tomorrow, and then that's a big milestone, and then getting back to some daily practice with my sketchbook. Perfect terms of creativity. Other than that, I have just a real a need for some social time and planning a few small getaways and appointments and things like that for my health and well being. That's it.
Jessica Abel (she/her)
53:50Sounds great, I love it. All right, I will see everybody next week. And yeah hope you have a great week. Tonight,
lisbethf
53:57you too.
Jessica Mehring
53:58Thank you. Bye.