Check The Perfection at The Door

Tuesday August 18, 2020 comments Tags: nonprofit, accounting, mission, vision, tools, infrastructure, systems, capacity building, goverance

Any accounting, business or tax advice in this here podcast is not intended as a thorough in depth analysis of your specific issues. It's not a substitute for a formal opinion. It is not good enough to avoid tax related penalties. Got to tell you this because don't want y'all coming for me. Did you know that I offer free 30 minute strategy sessions, strategy sessions are time for you to come with questions about the challenges your nonprofit is facing and for us to work through what that looks like, are there some resources that you need to be connected with? Are there some tools that we have that could guide you? Strategy sessions are free because I want you to have this time to really flesh out and talk out loud about what your organization is needing and if CNRG is a fit, great. But if not, we really want to make sure that you have what you need to take the next best step. Book a time on my calendar using calendly.com/cnrg/strategy. Back to the episode.

Chyla Graham:

Now I want to switch to some of the behind the scenes for you so we can talk some tips of that. So for you, Rachel, super excited. I want to know, you transitioned into your consulting role just a couple of years ago, and what's one piece of advice that has helped you grow as a leader and a business owner?

Rachel Miller-Bleich:

Oh, wow. So I feel like I'm still very much a newbie when it comes to this. What was one of the things I was thinking about? I think one of the things that I've especially had to learn ... I keep coming back to the reality that we're living in with the post-COVID. I keep calling it the post COVID era. I think that's almost a little too grand view thing. But I've been forced to really rethink a lot in terms of strategically, how am I trying to grow my business, promote my business, position it. And because I'm so new to consulting, it's certainly something that I'm constantly rethinking. I think one of the things I've especially had to learn recently is the necessity of rolling with the punches and being able to adopt a mindset of there's really no perfect way to do this, so I'm going to do what I can and trust that things can grow and evolve in ways.

Rachel Miller-Bleich:

I think it's easy to think, "Well, this is how it's so and so does it. So I should just follow in those footsteps or in that direction." But this is their learning experience. There's so much learning and doing at the same time when it comes to starting your own business. I think I decided from the beginning that I need to check my perfectionist attitudes at the door when it comes to this experience that is trying to be an entrepreneur, because perfectionism serves its purpose when you're trying to be very accurate with systems and processes for organizations, but when you're trying to be an entrepreneur, sometimes you have to set that aside and say, "I'm going to do the best I can, and I'm going to learn from things, whether they work or don't work."

Chyla Graham:

Yeah. That's good, and reminds me that we have to give ourselves grace to say, "When I learn better, I'll do better and I'm not going to judge my past work on the new information," because that's where I think sometimes we're like, "Oh, I could've done that better." Well, how would you have known to do that better? You just didn't know. So giving ourselves the grace to say, "It may not be perfect, but this is good, and we are going to move forward." So thanks. How do you prevent, and if you can't prevent, how do you reduce some of the overwhelm?

Rachel Miller-Bleich:

I think I'm still figuring it out. I tend to be an anxious person to begin with, so it's an ongoing learning, right? Ongoing learning experience to really to be able to step back and say, "This is what I need in the moment and I may not be getting XYZ done, but you really do have to approach things from a more mindfulness space." I know that can be a buzz word, but it really is important to maintain the sense of what are your priorities in the moment. Is it always professional or how much do you really need to focus on what you personally need in the moment?

Rachel Miller-Bleich:

So that's an ongoing learning experience, but I think also, I love being productive, I love accomplishing things, so if I can reach the end of the day thinking, "Yeah, I got stuff done. I got that blog post off and I'm really glad that I did." Being able to count those little wins too can certainly help especially when you feel as though you're not 100% sure how everything is adding up in the long run. So it's a work in progress. It's definitely a work in progress.

Chyla Graham:

So what do you think. Have you checked your perfection at the door?

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