It’s Time To Put You First By Karla McDiarmid

When asked to write an article for this edition I wanted to talk about something quite personal for me and many others that never really gets discussed… the elephant in the room...

The mental health of our leader , mentors, business owners & managers in the industry. We spend a lot of time talking about our teams but I feel more than ever its time to check on our business owners, suppliers, managers, business development managers & all of the people who go under the radar but help all of us every day.

Life is a crazy rollercoaster at the best of times.. but COVID has put a many extra upside down turns and twists like no other rollercoaster that existed in our lifetime.

As a business owner myself, I am continually investing in my teams wellbeing with education galore, resilliance training, positive mindset quotes & images, incentives to keep them motivated and happy, outings for breakfasts / meals & gifts when they reach targets –we even have Gucci handbags on offer to our team for our June / July targets. – crazy I know!

BUT who is looking after you?

We give so much to our teams to keep them in high spirits, we have to come home from work and give our family 200% effort, we check in with our friends , we continually work after hours to help others & are giving our customers another 200% of our attention – how much do time do you actually give to the most important person -YOU?

Burn out is real & it can affect anyone. If it is one thing I have learnt about being a business owner during Covid times– YOU have to put YOURSELF first because we cannot continue to pretend we are ok when dep down we are struggling too.

We cannot help our family, friends or our team if we haven’t got our own mindset in the right place or our body & gut in good health.

Attitude is everything right now, we are either thriving or barely surviving & for the majority it’s the later. Now is the time to really make some big postitive changes to your life. I feel this is easy to say and say ‘yes, Ive got this’ but do we really? Covid made me take a step back, it made me slow down & realise what was important and make changes to focus on me. The first change to help my own sanity was selling one of my business’s. Realising I needed to find me again & I need to find time for me.

I needed to stop spending more time in my car driving then anywhere else & that was a huge turning point. If I wasn’t driving to Sydney to see my family each weekend living out of a suitcase I was driving to another town to look after my two business locations. I became so obsessed with keeping our doors opened and not letting the business go backwards & making sure the team was happy that I forgot about me for many years.

If Covid had not happened I may not be here being able to write about it. For me it has been a true blessing in disguise.

As a business leader I watch how incredible many of our leaders , mentors & business owners are who have all greatly stepped up to help others over the past 1.5 years. I know so many are exhausted, mentally drained, they too have business’s also financially suffering and have given out so much of their time and education for free, it has been tremendously inspiring but I know many must be at breaking point & hurting right now in silence as well.

It took me a long time to realise I cannot keep being superwoman to others. I feel as leaders we need to talk about our own struggles more than to show it all nice & shiny when really its far from glamourous lives we all live. Many of my skin & beauty friends & from all industries are going through tough times right now but to their families, friends and staff – they would never be able to say or show how they really feel.

To keep our industry strong we all need to be strong and come together to say its ok not to be ok, its ok to have crappy days (even when you are the owner) and if you need to change business direction that’s ok too.. People said to me ‘your closing your Medi Spa’ ? ‘no I’m not I said.. I have sold it to someone who has a different business dream to mine & wants to put her own stamp on the business’.

Its not a bad thing to let go of the past, its not a bad thing to move on & when you recognise you need to change things & let go to actually change things in your life - wonderful things will happen!

To anyone who is a business owner or manager & is unsure which path to take right now .. always know sometimes a door has to close to open another.

I felt now more than ever we need to be honest with ourselves, we have given so much to others in the past years that we shouldn’t have to pretend as business owners we are ok. Its ok for us too to not be ok and we must build stronger together to raise our industry further and support our leaders, not just our teams.

If anyone is feeling alone or lost please feel free to reach out & most of all don’t be embarrassed or ashamed -we are all in this together. If we talk about it more in these tough times we can make a difference to all help one another.

If you or a loved one need support please contact Lifeline 131114