Hello, I'm Tina Tower, and you're listening to Her Empire Builder.

For my first decade of business I thought grinding and hustling and working harder than everyone else was my path to success. It was pretty successful by a lot of measures, but it led to burnout and adrenal fatigue. Then, when I travelled around the world on my family gap year, I discovered the simplicity and the reach of online business, and I completely fell in love.

You have so much knowledge and expertise that's within, and I want to help you to package that so you can also help to lift others up. So, how do you build a thriving million-dollar business based on everything that's in your mind? This is Her Empire Builder, the podcast.

Hello, and welcome to Episode 58 of Her Empire Builder. This is the final Her Empire Builder podcast episode for 2019. So, first off, I want to thank you for tuning in this year. It's been crazy to think that I started this podcast at the beginning of the year while I was sitting in a room in Kenya and I had just read Michelle Obama's wonderful, wonderful book, and decided that I wanted to start podcasting again and so started it right there and then, as we do, and have been absolutely stoked to bring you an episode each and every week, so thank you for listening because I mean, truthfully, if nobody tuned in every week, I wouldn't bother to do it again and again, if we're being honest.

And so, thank you for sharing it. Thank you for reviewing it. If you haven't left a review on iTunes or Apple or wherever you listen to podcasts, please, for this Christmas wish, if you could take the extra couple of minutes to leave a review, I would be so incredibly grateful. If you've got value out of this podcast at all this year, if you could leave a review, that would be so super awesome.

But yeah, so I started the year travelling which is crazy and it seems otherworldly. It's been a really transformative year in terms of, you know, we got back to Australia late April after nine months of travelling around the world and, you know, this online business has taken off and my coaching and consulting arm has taken off and, you know, we've developed an agency that builds people's online course websites and produces their podcasts and, and all of the different things. It's just been incredible, and I launched a book, which was amazing, did my Australian company director’s course, so it's been a year and for people that listen regularly you will know how hyper planned I am, but, about 10 minutes ago I decided to change today's topic of the podcast.

So, I had all my dot-points and everything written for an “End of Year Review and Planning Your Epic 2020”, but going through it and going through the dot-points and the template that I had created and all of the things I just, I just wasn't feeling it.

So, as I record this today, you can barely see outside, we're being choked with smoke from all of the Australian bushfires that are going on. I've had four coaching calls today and I had five yesterday and every single person that I spoke to is feeling the pressure, and there’s this, this sadness that's there, and I think there's just so much going on at the moment and you can't hide from it. You know, I walked out before and my car's covered in ash and it's just, I feel like everyone needs a bit of a break and I didn't want to go into this podcast episode in going, “Alright, whoop, whoop, let's be all rainbows and sunshine and plan this amazing year.”, because a lot of people need a rest, and so I think that this time of year right now, where we're sitting, mid-December, is not the best time to plan next year because it is crazy town.

There is so much going on. There is so much pressure. There's so much emotion in December. I mean the statistics are the highest level of divorces and breakups and suicides and mental health issues occur in December because of all of the emotion that surrounds the holidays and, and family and everything that goes on, and so I think you should either plan your following year in November, so should have done it a month ago, or in January after you've had a break and have a really beautiful clear mind, and so, when we return after the break on, so the first episode will come out on the 15th of January, that is when I'm going to deliver you the most beautiful template to kind of review your year and create the goals and the plans for everything going forward because I want you to have a really good rest. I want you to use the holidays for recharging.

For a lot of people, you've worked your guts out this year. Most people have been sprinting to the finish line of this year. Even, I spoke to one of my top mentors yesterday and she's like, “Oh, I just need a holiday. I will go anywhere. Give me a ticket to anywhere and I am there.”, and I was like, “I've never heard her speak that way.”, but everywhere I look, it seems people are tired and worn out and so I want you to take this, this time. Get the things done that you need to get done for the duration of the year.

So, I want to emphasise, you get done, because everyone's got all of these conflicting priorities constantly. So, if you're in service based business, or any business really, you’ll, you're serving people, you've got clients and most people are trying to rush everything so that they can finish off the year and tie it up neatly with a beautiful bow before we go into the Christmas holidays, and so there's this panic then ensues from that, in going, “Oh my gosh. We’ve got so much to do, and I need to get it all done now.” Don’t buy into that panic. You don't have to take on other people's pressure. So, delivering a super awesome, high quality standard and service, abso-freakin-loutely, but you don't have to take on their pressure. So, if someone's putting unrealistic time pressures on you, set your boundaries, be really clear on your boundaries, give exceptional customer service, but you can only do what you can only do.

So, here's my tips for the holiday season and for the next month until we meet again. One. This time is for recharging. A lot of people have all of these things because they've been head down, bum up, on working on their, working in their business, and so they think, “Okay. Over the holiday period there’s all of this other stuff that I've been putting off and putting off because I haven't had the time that I'm going to do over the holiday period.” If right now you're chuckling a little bit, or nodding along or going, “Oh, that's me.”, don't. Give yourself a holiday.

So, I want you to think if you're self-employed, which I assume most people that are listening to this podcast are, how much holiday leave did you have this year? So, did you have the minimum that everybody gets, of four weeks clear holidays this year? If the answer is no, you need a break. You have to give yourself time to recover, rest, recuperate and recharge. If you had more than that, take the break anyway, because I'm a very big believer in this balance and working really hard when we're at work, and then having that beautiful time to rest, recharge and recover. So, you know, that's my first one, number one.

Number two. Stay away from toxicity. So, you've got this beautiful time that you can use as your recovery time. As your recharging time. It's not helped if you fill every one of those days with negative, toxic people, which can happen in the Christmas period. So, I was talking to someone the other day about this because I, you know, if you’ve read my book, One Life, you know that I have an estranged relationship with my side of the family, and so, someone was saying to me, “You know, I've got a, got a difficult family and, you know, I'm always made to feel bad and I always leave in tears and I always do this.”,  and my response was, “Well, just don't go.”, and here, this is the hard part, is because everybody, well so many people do things out of obligation, and that you’re family, and you just have to deal with that. I don't believe that people have the right to treat you like a piece of shit, and you have to deal with that because they’re family.

So, I think, really set your boundaries, again, with that, and if that's your situation, I mean, you may be one of these lucky people with a Hallmark family, and if you are, you know, that is so lucky. I hope to create that for my children, but if you come from, from a family where the holiday period is filled with a whole lot of angst and a whole lot of anxiety and a whole lot of discomfort, you don't have to engage with it, or, plan it really well so that you know you’re going to get in, what you're going to do, how you're going to cope with it in advance, and then you're going to get out and you're going to have a mechanism in place to let that shit go, so that you don't, you know the times where you repeating those conversations over and over in your head thinking of the things you wish you'd said that you didn’t, all of that sort of stuff. So, have that in there, and if it's, if there's too, if it's too toxic, just boycott it.

I mean, for years and years, my husband and I boycott Christmas. We, kind of, every second year, go away for Christmas overseas and we just literally leave. So, you can do whatever you want with that, but it's up to you and it's your boundaries to place but I don't think you should suffer through the holidays. It's a choice that we make, and yeah, it can be a difficult one, but stay away from toxicity so that you can let your heart heal and recover and get ready for the new year.

Third one. I'm going all over the place with these. There’s, these are in no linear fashion. My third one, don't go into debt for the ones that you love. So, talking about statistics, January has the highest rate of credit card debt. Credit card debt, now we have things like Zippay and Afterpay that are just asking for trouble, and it's easy to get swept up and it's easy to get excited about all of these things, and because we love people, if your love language is gifting, that's a recipe for disaster, and so make sure that when you're going to spend something that you can afford it because when it comes into January, and we go to plan our new year and we go to set that up, we want that to be from a place of this beautiful fresh start. If you've got credit card debt hanging over you as you enter into the new year, it's automatically going to start you off on a rough foot. You're automatically going to be in a place where you’re going, “Oh, first I've got to sort this shit out because I got too excited and I bought all these things.” The people that you love don’t care.

So, an example of that, which I was having a discussion with a girlfriend the other day, and she was a little horrified was, our kids don't normally get Christmas presents, and you may gasp at that but let me explain. So, when our kids were very little, two and three, we, we were very tight financially. We didn't have a lot of money, and so we didn't really, you know, I wasn't going to go and spend hundreds of dollars that I didn't have, in order to give them a Christmas present because at Christmas, you give presents.

I’m a big fan of presence over presents and so we always get exciting things, we always did things with the family, but then we didn't do presents, and then when they got a little bit older and we started, you know, getting into a better financial position, we started going overseas for Christmas, and so we had a Christmas in Indonesia and Fiji and Finland and so many other places, and when we were there, we'd say, “You know, we're travelling, so this is kind of the gift and you don't need any presents because you get things all through the year.”, and this is what I explained to our children is, you know, the other day Kai, my eldest son, he needed a pair of shoes. His shoes had holes in them. So, I'm like, “Okay, no worries.” So, we just go up to the shop and we get a pair of shoes. My other son, he wanted, you know, a new tool set because he's building jumps for his BMX bikes, and so we go down to Bunnings and we pick him up a few things. Like, when they need things, or want things, they get them, and so, should I get them additional things at Christmas just because on that day, you're supposed to give presents? I mean, who even made that rule up? To me it's madness, and so, no, they don't need anything.

Sometimes they'll get things, you know, this year I've wrapped them up a towel because they need, they need new beach towels, but it's not really a big deal in our family. To me Christmas is more about the holidays and spending time together and recharging, rather than what gift have I got wrapped under the tree, and so, you know, if you’re living by these rules, I want you to really question, because that was something that became really clear and polarised when we were travelling, was, we operate under all of these sets of rules for all areas of our lives that are so normal to us but in other cultures, they're completely different, and it's only us that enforces these rules.

So, if there's something that's not serving you, question whether, you know, is that going to be right for you or should you do something different? And my kids don't mind at all. So, some people will say, “You know, do your kids feel ripped off? Do they get really upset about, you know, when the other kids say, Well, what did you get for Christmas? and you say, Nothing.” I mean, my kids, they did get a little bit and we've had a Christmas volunteering. We, we take them to different third world countries and all of these things so that, I mean, they know how lucky they are as humans and never once would they, would they complain that they don't get an extra gift on Christmas, because they get so much other stuff. Anyway, so that's a whole other thing.

Okay, so, what am I up to? Number four. Number four is if the Christmas period is a difficult time for you, stay away from social media is my, is my biggest tip. It's difficult not to feel alone during the Christmas period, no matter how much you've got around you, because when you look on social media, it looks like people are having the greatest time with their friends at all these Christmas parties, with the Hallmark families that are all happy and gorgeous. I mean, you're not seeing all of the other parts but if you feel like you're lacking in that, in that area and you don't have the people around you, or the people around you aren't who you wish they were, it can be very easy to evoke that feeling of loneliness in the holiday time.

So, my advice would be, one, stay off social media, but also, if you’re feeling alone, tell someone because I know, you know, I have Christmas with, with my cousin who also is estranged from her mother. So, we used to, it's actually my husband's cousin, but we're very close and I call her my cousin, but, you know, we bonded very early because she comes from a very difficult family as well, and so one Christmas, you know, we crossed paths and our families don't normally, you know, they didn't Christmas together, and she was really upset because she saw all of these other people that, you know, they had their parents around and they had these beautiful Christmases going and she was telling me about that and then, you know, I was crying and going, “You know, I just wish that I had my family around as well.” We always felt sad and alone thought at Christmas because we didn't have what we thought everybody else had and so because we talked about it, we now, this Christmas, we're spending the day together, and we can fill that void for one another. So, if you're feeling alone, tell someone because there's plenty of people there, that will be feeling the same, that will go, “Hang on a minute. If you need a party, come join our party. Let's do it together.”

Another good alternative is volunteering. So, it's something that I love to do, is, you know, go out and help someone. Go and feel connected in that way because that does change that feeling so damn quickly, and if you see someone else who's lonely, invite them in. Invite them into your world, give them kindness, sprinkle that kindness. To me, that is what the Christmas period is all about, is spreading that joy and that love as far and wide as we possibly can.

Okay, so going forward. For the duration of the year, so like I said earlier, what I want you to do is, I want you to focus on the things that you need to get done. Not somebody else, you. So, we've got, like, a week and a half is what most people have of the rest of the year, and then you get to switch off. It's not very long. Instead of that panicking you, just get done the things that you need to get done. Write a beautiful list. Put them in an order of priority. Whack them on your calendar for when you're going to be able to get them done and stick to that, and anything else that pops up, feel free to say to people, “You know what? This year I'm all maxed out, but I am back on this date next year and we will talk then, and I will give you my undivided attention and it will be amazing. Happy holidays.”

So, when you get that day where you are breaking up for the year, switch it off. Take the opportunity. There's not many opportunities through the year where you can, guilt free, switch off and people aren't trying to chase you at the same time because everyone's in the same boat. Everybody is wanting to switch off. You know, you have that beautiful blissful week in between Christmas and New Year where you lose track of what day of the week it is, and you can just do all the things that you want to do. My advice would be stick on that auto responder on your email as quickly as possible and do not check it. So, through the break until you're coming back, don't check your emails. Give yourself that break. Give yourself that chance for recharging. Take the break when you are and trust that it's all going to be okay when you come back.

Stay off social media as much as possible unless you have to do it for business, or you really want to connect with people. Really take the chance to connect with yourself and connect with nature and connect with your friends and your family and the things that are important to you.

So really, I think, plan, because, you know, I’m a planner. So, I think it's purposeful downtime. So, you may need to have a couple of days where you just go, “You know what? I'm just not making any plans. I'm just going to recover, get the adrenaline out of my system.” Let your cortisol levels go back to normal, but I like to have even at list for the off time, in terms of going, “I want to do all these things on my blissful week.” So, whether it's plant a garden, or watch Netflix, or take a bath, or walk along the beach, write a list of all of those things that make you happy, that you don't normally get a chance to do because you're either too wound up or too busy or you can't find the time and make sure that in the holidays, every time you go to reach for doing that little bit of work, and sneaking that little bit in or sneaking a look at your emails, look at that list and go, “You know what? Instead, I'm going to choose something that's nurturing my soul.”, because next year, you've got a whole lot of chance to do it again. It's a new year, it's a new decade. It's a beautiful time to reset, recharge and to go again.

So that is what, that is my Christmas wish for you, is that if you’ve raced into the end of the year that the gift that you give yourself, is the gift of time, that you let yourself guilt free, have a rest, that you connect with the people that you love, that you have an absolutely beautiful Christmas and holiday period where you get to do the things that you want to do so that you can start 2020 with a happy heart because that is what I think is most important.

So, I will be back with Her Empire Builder on the 15th of January and the episode will be “How to Review 2019” and to do all of the goal setting for 2020. Now if you want to jump the gun, I'm going to put the template in there for the people that do do this over the Christmas break, you can go to tinatower.com/58 because this is Episode 58, so, tinatower.com/58, the numbers, and you will see the template there that you can download so that you're all ready for the 15th of January.

Now I will be off work from next week, whoop, whoop, enjoying some rest and relaxation, but I will be back earlier than most. I'll be back on the 6th of January because Laptop Life, my online program with how to create your own online course, is launching on the 7th of January. So, it's launching on the 7th of January to the public, 6th of January for people on the waitlist. So, if you want to jump on the waitlist for that go to tinatower.com/join. A lot of people have been waiting a long time, so I only open it twice a year. So, for one week, twice a year, and it shows you, if you've, if you've ever been thinking about creating your own online course or membership community, it runs you through how to actually build that and how to get that happening, how to create your content, how to do all of those things. So, if that is on your list to look at for next year, you'll get the chance to do that from the 7th until the 14th of January, it will be closed again.

Alrighty. Merry Christmas. I hope you have the most beautiful Christmas and wishing you the most wonderful year ahead. Again, thank you so much for your beautiful precious time during the holiday, during this year, and tuning into Her Empire Builder. I hope it's given you a lot of value every week and helps you to build the different areas of both your business and enables you to have the mindset to get you there as well. I'm looking forward to some really exciting things in 2020 that we can do together to help build our empires and help to lead these amazing lives. Merry Christmas everybody.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Her Empire Builder. If you loved it, please share it on Instagram and Facebook for your friends and if you really want to deliver me smiles, you can pop a review on iTunes.

I'd love to hear from you so if you have any questions, email me at [email protected] and if you want to know more about what we do, head over to tinatower.com. Now I truly hope this podcast gives you so much value and you can use it to dream big, plan well and take massive action in building your very own empire that's perfect just for you.