Success Coaching and Training | Responding Well During Change

Eric 0:01
Now in today’s episode, we’re going to take a bit of a pause, as well I guess, as as a, as a as a reflection of the fact that the world is in a bit of a pause right now. We are in the middle of stay at home orders as a result of the COVID-19 Coronavirus. And today what we’re going to do is this, we’re going to listen in on a conversation that I got to have with Brenda Wise about how to respond and pivot and really succeed and work and just all kinds of we hit on several different topics as it relates to responding to this timeframe. Now, if you don’t know who Brenda is, Brenda Wise is a captivating speaker. She’s a highly regarded leader. She’s a successful trainer. She’s a dynamic businesswoman. And she’s she’s just has a great deal of experience and has done all kinds of things in her past. In fact, I’ll make sure to post a little bit of her bio on the show notes here. But she is has a plethora of experience that complements her 36 years as a speaking professional trainer and entrepreneur making her unique background actually an asset to her training and consulting.

Eric 1:51
Now she has she served as the Co-owner of an international franchise company with over 50 offices located in the US, Mexico and Canada. In other words, she’s the real deal. She holds several affiliations from National Speakers associations. And as a speaker and consultant now she owns Success Training and Consulting. She’s had clients such as NASA Hewlett Packard centerra hospital, they let’s see Bank of America Dominion Virginia power PETA just all united way the Virginia pilot Norfolk and southern Eastern Virginia medical school, Mary Kay I, her list just goes on and on and on of clients that she has worked with, and, and helped over the years now.

Eric 2:45
Today, like I said, we’re going to have a conversation and Brenda’s she really focuses passionately on assisting others in gaining a new awareness. And right now two of you especially change as a positive opportunity to create the results that one desires in life both personally and professionally. So I really enjoyed our conversation and got a lot of solid actionable steps from her and from the conversation. And so without further ado, it is my privilege to bring to you today a conversation with Brenda Wise. And we’re doing this as a business association to help you respond and pivot and this time of change. So with that, my conversation with Brenda Wise.

Eric 3:42
Well, Hello again and welcome to the podcast. As I said there in the intro. This episode is a little bit different in regards to instead of sitting down in a place of business with a community leader here in ocean view, we are meeting via zoom and so you’re going to notice that the audio sounds a little bit different than it generally does on a podcast but I’m excited to be joining joined today by Brenda and Brenda and your last name is Wise. Yeah.

Brenda 4:18
It spreads.

Eric 4:20
Brenda Wise, Brenda, what’s the name of your business?

Brenda 4:23
Success Treraining and Consulting.

Eric 4:27
All right. So success training and consulting. Now have you just real quick before we get into what you do and stuff you live in, near in or near ocean view? How long has this area been your stomping grounds?

Brenda 4:43
I am a fourth generation Norfolk Norfolkian. My family has lived here for a very long time the Wises at one point owned a portion of the Norfolk waterfront.

Eric 4:54
Oh okay

Brenda 4:55
The history books of Hertford county so I was conceived and well Spit. And I have lived in Ocean View since 92. I grew up in Norfolk over at Cromwell and Tidewater drive.

Eric 5:11
Well, great. Well, well, I think you have the longest local history of anyone I’ve talked to, except for you know, Charlie at the station museum has a pretty long history here as well. But but I think you might even with the the generations there have have him beat. So well, it is exciting because for people that don’t know, that are listening to the podcast that may be coming in to travel to the area. Um, the, as a military town, we have a high turnover, and a lot of people resettle here after they get out of the military. So yeah,

Brenda 5:47
Yes, that is correct.

Eric 5:48
Yeah. So it’s nice to talk to someone. Well, listen, the reason we’re doing this is, is via video instead of face to face and a place of business is, as we’re recording this, our country, specifically our our community, our state is under a stay at home order, because of the corona novel virus COVID-19. And, and right now, you know, we’re we’re all having to make decisions, Brenda, and so I’m excited to hear from you. What, what are some, you know, advice? What are some encouragement you have for people during these unsettling times?

Brenda 6:31
Thank you so much, Eric, for having me on and letting me share one of my passions in life is to educate and share with people so that they can become the best version of themselves they can be. I focus on several different areas, personal development, being changed, resilient boy, is that something we ever need right now, at this point in time, yeah, on how to be an effective communicator, not only in our business, but with our families, we’re all stuck with the right now. 24 seven. And that’s becoming a new awareness for a lot of people in the relationships within the home. And also, lastly, gratitude and appreciation, whether it be for our family members, or our customers, you see right now we’re all getting a pause button hit in our life, to be able to step back and say what’s truly important in our lives. And we need to be reminded of what we are grateful for. And so I have this quote To start off with, it’s not the strongest of species that survive, nor is that the most intelligent, but rather the ones most responsive to change. And that is by Darwin. And of course, we are now in a absolute change. I mean, the world has never seen this before. And so this is all brand new, what we are processing right now.

Brenda 7:48
So the first thing we need is stability. Okay, we need to acknowledge our fears, the doubts, the uncertainty, and the new reality that all of us face. What we’re doing right now is the new digital economy, virtual, whether you like it or not, you got to get used to it, because that is the direction we’re moving in our lives. And we also need to realize that how we respond and how we react is totally within our control. We make that decision of how we respond to react, and how we’re going to move through this in a positive or on resourceful negative way. But we get to choose that.

Brenda 8:27
The other thing we need to look at is being grounded to really build on what is positive in our lives, what can we control? And what can we do to make ourselves happy moving forward, even though this isn’t, you know, necessarily all a happy place for us. But again, it’s all a matter of perspective, we have to have perspective. And lastly, we really need to ground I have heard it said repeatedly, over and over again, skill up now is the time, if you have never given great consideration to personal development, self education, being able to grow yourself personally and professionally. Now is the time I heard this morning, I believe it is 20 million people will not be going back to work. So they’ve got to find a new model a new way of doing business, whether it’s now working for themselves, which that’s what every American dream is to work for themselves. But they’ve never had the impetus. They’ve never had that push to say go, now is your time. Well, guess what? Now is your time to take that step into the unknown.

Brenda 9:36
Yes, it’s being forced. But you know, in hindsight, many of us can look back at the changes in our lives and go, you know, I was terribly afraid of that at first, and I was able to move through it. And actually on the other side, it was so much better than I ever thought possible. So that’s the perspective and the outlook and the mindset we really need to have we need to skill up level up and why up. So there’s several different areas that we can go into business, I do a whole program on business of the 21st century. And whether you want to be an entrepreneur and Employee Self Employed or an investor of some type, they’re really four quadrants. But today, I really wanted to look at how can you manage yourself care? And how can you manage the care of your customers right now, because that’s truly what’s most important.

Brenda 10:26
So a few quick tips I’d like to run through. Number one working from home is our new normal, and it may be the new normal for a lot of people moving forward. It’s certainly something that companies will more seriously look at now than ever before. We need to have more understanding and empathy for ourselves, for our families, for our customers, because this is all new. nobody’s done this before in this situation, we need to look at our morning routines, whatever they were, we need to keep them we need to keep as much normality in our life as possible. And doing that same morning routine, you’re meditating your gratitude, your exercise, your reading, showering, getting dressed fully and not sitting around eating potatoes, potato chips, sitting on the sofa, in your pajamas, 12 hours, 14 hours or even all day long. That’s not going to help.

Brenda 11:14
We’ve got to be really, really flexible and realize that we we get up from that bed in the morning, we do our routines we sit down, we’re going to work, whether or not we’re going to work for somebody else, or we have this paradigm shift in our head that you know what, Now’s my time. I need to go into business for myself. And we need to think seriously about what is that? What is our passions? You know, what are we good at, and then have the direction of somebody who’s been successful in business, trust me hear me successful in business, to be able to guide people through that process. And I love doing that for people. Another thing we need to do when when or when are in our home working, have a dedicated workspace and have a door just like you have a door on your office. So do I. So it keeps out the interference and distractions from others set boundaries.

Brenda 12:01
Make sure those schedules are respected by yourself and your family members. If you’ve got some important things to do, do them and then let your kids know after I finished this hour of work, then we can go play outside, take a walk whatever. Focus on the big three, what are your biggest ROI is during the day? Is that your phone calls to your customers? Is it getting certain reports or paperwork done? You know, is it making follow up appointments, whatever that is those three most important things that continue to move your business forward, stay focused on that. One of the best things that I’ve learned to do in my business is time block. And that is taking an hour, well 15 minutes within an hour and work on one thing. And then 15 minutes, alarm your phone, boom, you’re up breathing, stretching, moving that physical space. And then you’ll be much clearer when you sit down again to work your next 15 minutes. So block up 15 minutes, but maybe it’s phone calls this 15 minutes, maybe it’s reading a book that will take you further this 15 minutes, maybe it’s doing some paperwork. Whenever that is you time block your day, you will get so much more done. It is an amazing tool. Many successful professionals use it.

Brenda 13:16
Another thing you want to consider doing is the important three before bed number one for three hours before bed do not eat anything that is very very important to your physical health. Two hours no work before bed. Give your mind the ability to start calming down and really focusing on yourself on your family in that time. And then of course one hour no screen time no TVs no iPads, read, have conversations, maybe sit outside and enjoy the beautiful sun or whether moon you know stars it just a nice night we got some beautiful weather. So get out and enjoy it and let yourself wind died wound down that way.

Brenda 14:02
Another is looking at communication. How are you being able to communicate now with your work is it through zoom? Again, there is very much professional etiquette to be used when you’re using a zoom platform. It’s not sitting there in your pajamas or just getting out of bed your hairs all over the place. I’m not speaking when somebody else is speaking there’s a lot of etiquette that really needs to be considered when doing zoom programs, or that method of communication. Sending text I tell people right now, I am reaching out to 10 people every day 10 of my clients through voicemail through text messaging, just saying Hey, how are you? Why I want them to know that I care because once this thing is over, those people will remember that. Now remember that you stopped long enough got outside yourself and reached out to those customers. So making sure that you’re staying in contact with them so you stay top of mind. So when we re Engage, they will truly appreciate your willingness to do that.

Brenda 15:07
A lot of times, if we’re sitting at home and we’re not getting out, we get creative blocks, you know, we get so focused and saying in our office, so we need to build in that time, if we’ve got a difficult customer we’ve just dealt with, or we’ve got a project we just can’t seem to see through. We need to go do something else, whether it’s to take a walk, whether it’s to play with the kids, maybe it’s a craft project, maybe it’s doing a puzzle for 30 minutes, just letting your mind to reorganize itself. So when you come back, you’ve got a fresh perspective. Yes, if it needs to be Netflix, okay, 30 minutes, whatever, then pause it and go finish the show later. But just give your brain the opportunity to kind of break and reassess. Because we don’t have that, that break room or whatever, to go and talk and mingle with other people. So we still got to give ourselves the ability, because I know I’m guilty, I can get in here in the morning, and I can stay until night and I can be so focused on my work.

Brenda 16:00
Now I don’t have kids, but I do have a husband and I can just get really immersed in my, in my business. Um, so we talked about taking breaks, talked about being very focused, staying off of Facebook and staying away from the news. Yeah, that is the most dangerous thing, I have literally stopped watching the news from almost the very beginning. Once I saw where we were headed, I figured it out. I said, Okay, I’m staying away. Now my husband, he loves to watch the news. And that’s great for him. I figure if it’s super, super important, I’m going to hear about it, either somebody is going to tell me about it, or he’s going to tell me about it, or a customer is going to tell me about it. I’ll hear about it. So I really do. It’s not it’s not useful for me to stay stuck up and spin up. And all of that negative and resourceful stuff. So why put myself there. It doesn’t make me productive.

Brenda 16:49
I get on Facebook, maybe once a day for my business to do several posts throughout the day, but it’s only short spurts. Put a post on LinkedIn, Instagram, and then that’s it, I now now I do have some webinars that I’ll pull up through Facebook, and get on the webinars. But again, we’ve got to be willing to stay away from those things that can be a drain on our time and our energy and we can get in a black hole. And before you know it, you’ve lost two hours. So it’s so easy to do.

Brenda 17:17
We need to make sure that we know once the work that needs to be done that’s uninterrupted, like videoing like we’re doing right now, that’s uninterrupted at home, kids, Everybody stay away, then there’s things that we can do that we can have interruptions, whether it’s working on a blog, or editing a video or working on a script, you know, we have that flexibility. And then of course, when the kids are around, you know, there’s things that we can do while they’re around, it’s not going to stop us from being productive. So know what those things are put them in priority and work accordingly.

Brenda 17:47
Delegation, everybody’s finding it so interesting that they can buy their groceries online and have them delivered. I’ve had more people say, Oh, my God, if I had known it was this easy, I’ve been doing this all along. So it’s taken a whole step out of a whole lot of busy lives, because you merely go on to so many sources and get their groceries delivered, or seniors don’t have to worry so much about going out that they can have their groceries delivered. So look for resources that can serve you in this time of quarantine, that will still help you to be able to move forward in your life. So I think that’s really great awareness as well.

Brenda 18:23
Keeping the lines of communication open, like I said, how this is affecting your kids is how this is affecting your wife, how our spouse, you know, is very significant. So we need to be mindful of what other people are going through and have dialogue with them. I talked to a woman who’s a homeschooler. And I said, Give me some feedback. And she said number one, parents need to learn how to be good parents. That was her first statement to me, so I am not a parent. But that was very wise. She said, you know, exercise self discipline, understand everybody’s looking at you right now. your customers, your clients, your family, your friends, your children, everybody’s looking at how you’re responding and how you’re handling that.

Brenda 19:05
You will either be a role model, or you will not, I choose to be a role model and make sure that what I’m doing is purposeful and useful. So other people see that. She said also be relaxed and be flexible. I mean, my middle name is flexibility. The person with the law of requisite requisite variety, the person with the most flexibility will control the situation. And it’s so true. The more flexible we are, the more we’re able to handle those changes that come at us and a much more joyful, exciting way.

Brenda 19:35
So I hope that everybody is, is managing this staying healthy, staying well and learning that you know, yes, we are in this situation. But I have to tell you, I’ve been getting more work done and had been just as functional as if I was out there running around networking. So it’s been very, very useful to me again, making sure your clients know that you care. I’m sending cards, find cards that have like toilet paper on them and slot 10 and dice are in the middle of it, so that people can, you know, have a good laugh. And it’s called a survival kit. So I’m sending that out to my customers, and they’re loving it. Everybody loves a little chocolate brownie. And so that’s just another way to say, Hey, I care about you, I appreciate you. And if you need anything, please let me know. And that’s what people want to know is that somebody cares about them.

Eric 20:24
Yeah, hey, that’s all great stuff. Um, you know, if you can send me some of that in writing, or just a list of some of those ideas, I’ll put them with the show notes as well. Because people, people right now are going to have us in their earbuds as they’re, you know, driving, mowing the yard, something like that. So we will go back and look at those notes. And those are all great stuff. I would I was smiling and nodding my head along during a great deal of it. Because for me, what everybody calls quarantine life I call Thursday. Um, we, you know, we’ve always homeschooled our children, we have four children, my wife, homeschools them. I’ve always worked from home, my entire career has been, you know, I’ve worked from home. And so we’ve, we didn’t realize that we had over our, you know, 10 years of marriage, we had developed this lifestyle with these boundaries in place, having the office door, you know, my kids know, if it’s close, it’s like Dad’s not there, like don’t even knock on it.

Eric 21:32
But then I have to make sure that I actually leave it open during the day, because that’s one of the benefits for me of working from home, my kids can come in and ask me a question. My break my lunch hour, most of the time, I get to have lunch with my kids, I eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner with my wife and my kids 99% of the time, and I and that we’re just used to that. And I told my wife, I said, I’ll be interested to see when this is all over. You know, for the first couple of weeks, people were just, you know, it was like they were just you know, punched in the gut. But now people are starting to settle into this. I’m purely, I’m gonna be really curious about how many people on the other side of this go? You know, I don’t know about sending my kids back to school. You know, you know, I don’t know about going back. Now there will be some that they’re just wired that way they just have to, and that’s absolutely,

Brenda 22:23
Yeah, there are some but I think you’re right, that the A lot of people will look at this, and they’ll be forced to look at this, you know, they may still need daycare, they may still you know, want to have their kids at home, I mean, at school, but they’re gonna look at walking into what can I do? What can I do that I can grow myself in my business and I’m not dependent on that employer who says how much I can work, how much I can make. I think people are going to have a totally different paradigm about their ability to do once we move through this I think that’s going to and then they’re going to have to because the jobs are going to be completely different. The way I operate business

Eric 23:04
Well, I loved the phrase you use the new digital I think you said digital marketplace,

Brenda 23:10
Digital economy,

Eric 23:11
Digital economy, digital economy. Yeah, that’s, that’s really good. Well, and and I tell people, you know, my clients all the time lately is this hasn’t been something I’ve been able to use with clients until recently, but recently I’ve been telling all of them you know, on a regular basis Hey, remember, a waiting period is a preparing period don’t just sit there I’m I’m kind of mind boggled about how many people I’ve talked to that are just Well, they’re just sitting there now just waiting. And I’m like, Oh my goodness. This is a this is I wish it wasn’t happening but it is happening. So leverage it for everything it’s worth.

Brenda 23:47
Yeah, absolutely. That’s why stay home skill up. Level up and wise up because you’re needing this when you move through this to the other side.

Eric 23:57
Yep, absolutely. Well, Brenda, thank you so much for that encouraging word for the list of ideas, some really actionable things. Generally we the way the podcast works is I’ll generally record an episodes about six weeks out from from before it actually goes live. But this one I’m going to post it pretty much straight away you know within 24 hours because this is the message people need right now. How can I say I reach out to you directly what’s the best way for people to reach you?

Brenda 24:30
You can find me on Facebook private message me on a Brenda Wise or my email is Brenda at Brenda Wise.com. And my website is Brenda Wise calm.

Eric 24:39
Alright, sounds great. And if you are currently at a place you couldn’t write that down, just head on over to the Brenda wise comm or as always, you can find this episode in the show notes at Ocean View dot biz. So thank you very much, Brenda.

Brenda 24:56
Thanks, Eric. Everybody, have a great day.

Eric 24:59
And thank You friend for listening to the Discover Oh v podcast. And again, a big shout out shout out there to Brenda wise for sharing with us some great insight today on the podcast. Now, if you are a business owner or leader in the ocean view area, and you are currently not a part of the ocean view Business Association, we would love to have you join us. Membership is $100 for the year. And that gets you a listing on our directory website, Ocean View dot biz, as well as access to all kinds of great content and a network of people in the trenches with you. And we all work together to make all businesses better in Ocean View. Because as our businesses go, so goes our community. And so with that, thanks again for listening to the Discover, OV podcast, and I for 1am looking forward to seeing you all again in person soon at our favorite restaurants and parks and crowded up beaches and breweries and all of the other places that make ocean of views so amazing our coffee shops and just all kinds of things. So in the meantime, stay safe. Stay well stay and stay informed, stay inspired and encouraged and know that the end is to all of this is in sight. And in the meantime, we want to just encourage you to still still be supporting your local businesses with a takeout and curbside pickup from our restaurants and you know, however else it is that you can find to support a local business right now. So with that, thanks again for listening to the DiscoverOV podcast.