SideQuest 17: The Ugly Truth About Building a Business (80-Hour Weeks & Therapy)
Welcome back to another Sidequest, besties! Today, Samantha is taking over the interviewer chair to ask Emily and Arly about a topic very close to our hearts: what it takes to bring a massive dream to life.
We also introduce a brand new segment called "Heck Yeah!" where we just want to be your ultimate hype women! If you are doing something exciting and need a cheerleader, comment on our posts so we can celebrate you and your wins.
Let's dive into the reality of what it looks like behind the scenes as we build the Handyma'am community.
Coping with the Chaos (80-Hour Work Weeks)
Bringing a dream to life requires a lot of long hours, and we are currently working 80-hour weeks to get this community off the ground. Here is how we cope without losing our minds:
Hyper-Focusing: Instead of getting overwhelmed by the massive picture of everything we have to do, we hyper-focus on the specific task right in front of us to get the work done.
Delegating the "Suck": We share the tasks we hate based on who is best suited to deal with them. For example, Emily hates making spreadsheets, so she happily trades those tasks for editing TikTok videos!
Therapy & Support Systems: If you don't have a support system, find a therapist. Even if you do have a great support system, get a therapist! Having an objective third party to talk to is crucial for your mental health. It also helps to have incredibly supportive partners—like Emily's husband, who has taken over a disproportionate amount of the household chores and dog walking while she grinds.
Sharing the Load: When one of us is totally crashing and overbooked, the other two step in, look at her to-do list, and take things off her plate to share the burden.
Decompressing: Samantha unplugs from the overstimulation of phone notifications by taking a long bath at the end of every day to help her brain and body slow down.
Dealing with Disappointment
We are a very hopeful trio, but building a business comes with a lot of letdowns. Here is how we push through the rejections:
Pivot: When an opportunity doesn't pan out or we get ghosted, we just acknowledge the bummer, ask "what's the next step?", and find a different avenue.
The Painting Analogy: Life is like a painting. If you x-ray some of the greatest artworks in the world, you will see an "underpainting" that the artist completely changed and painted over to create the final masterpiece. When our original vision doesn't work out, it just means we are currently working on the underpainting.
Practice Gratitude: It sounds cliché, but practicing gratitude actually reformats your brain psychologically. When we start spiraling into negativity, we literally sit down together and list out what we are grateful for to keep the darkness at bay.
The "Why" Behind the Handyma'am Mission
At the end of the day, we are doing all of this because women need to know how to take care of their own houses. Knowing how to fix things brings both financial independence and emotional independence. It gives you the agency and autonomy to choose who comes into your home and how you spend your money.
When things get hard and we want to quit, we remember this: We aren't just the people who can make this happen. We are the people who cannot not make this happen.
Thanks for joining us for this peek behind the curtain! Come see us on Friday for our main episode, and follow us daily on Instagram @howtohandymaam!
Episode Transcript:
All right, folks, welcome back to the Arly. Take it away. Come. To the side. Quest. Oh, you're so good. All right, many more. Today I am interviewing the two of you on a topic that is really close to what's happening to us right now and really close to my heart. And that's. Scared, I know. Me too. What does that have? To be scared. So obviously what we're trying to do with how to handyman is incredibly important to us and you, listener. Out there, you weren't prepped at all. So we're just. Like, yeah, OK, yeah, you listener out there. You have something you're trying to do right now that's incredibly important to you, too. And I want to talk about how do you handle it, because sometimes circumstances make it really difficult, OK. Listener, if you were doing something fun and exciting that makes you really like happy and excited and you want to talk to someone about it and you want them to be a hype person, comment on any of our stuff. Yeah, let us know we wanna support. You other people send. Us, we wanna hype you up. We're excellent hype. This is a new segment called Heck Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah, send us. Your. Heck yeah. Here this is. This Is Us being hyped for you, just being who you are. Yeah. Hold on, you're. Straight killing it. We'll give you a moment to say what you're doing. Ready. Say what you're doing. Yeah. So. Good, that's amazing. I'm so proud of seeing anybody do something like that. Dang. I've never seen anybody do something so well and also the passion behind it I just really appreciate. It and Can you believe how fast it happened? I don't. I mean, I'm really proud of. Amazing. Good job. I'm not your mom or anything, but I'm proud like a mom would be. All right, so. That was our audition to be your high people. That's right. So we're celebrating right now, which is critically important. So that's one of the things I imagine will come up as we talk about this excuse my noise. And with the microphone a little further away, it feels like it's right in my face. So which it is because that's how microphones work. Friday afternoon. So I want to talk about some of the things we're experiencing because this has happened to me a few times in my life where I'm bringing something to life that that is so important to me that like it not happening is just not an option. Yeah. It's it's not going to fail because we're crazy. No. And I will talk because there's some examples. There's some other things you try, like I want to learn how to paint. I want to learn how to do stained glass. And you're like, if you like, like my sister Phyllis, I taught her how to crochet. And she's like, you know what? I don't love this. Here's your stuff back, which, you know, low stakes. She was not emotionally invested in becoming a master crocheter. So I mean, it's important to know what you like and what you don't. Like some things like that are in are like that in life, but some things in life you must make it happen. And it's different for each of us. But this is something that we cannot not bring to life. True. For a variety of reasons. So I want to talk about, but it's heck and hard sometimes. So I just want to talk about a few of the specific challenges because others will have those same too. And I just want to talk with you guys about how specific strategies for handling it so that you can continue to pursue your dream without going crazy. So I mean the crazy part. Are coping skills. Coping skills, basically. I'm not. Sure. So I have a. Lot tell me about how you manage the long hours that often come with trying to create something. I think mine is like hyper focusing and we divide explain. Well I am either like running around like a chicken with her head cut off. But sometimes I like also like hyper focus on things. So I kind of have to if I know it's going to take me like a minute and to allow like the time to like sit down and do it. And then I will just like the work will just kind of happen because it is work. And like when I'm done with it in a little bit like exhausted, but like spending time with it and focusing on like just that and just the mission of like that task or that like thing. So rather than thinking about the whole thing you're trying to create, it's just the task you have in front of you right now. Yeah, I find that's the easiest way. And then when I get like annoyed or something, I usually can just like, I'm like, I like so many other things about my job. If if this is what I have to do to get to do the other things, then yeah. But we also delegate our tasks pretty well when we're like, I really don't want to do this thing, Yeah. And so we try to get it so that everybody has something that they like to do, but then the things that aren't as fun, so. Sharing the sucky things, yeah. But they also go to the people like that you really struggle. You like, you really don't like certain things, but I really do not want to make a spreadsheet. Yeah, but like. You like sign me up, girl out there. Yeah. I'm like, can I trade you a ticked one Tic Tac video for one spreadsheet? Yes. So we even the things that kind of suck, we give to the person who is best suited to deal with that thing. So I think that helps. How do you manage the long hours I'm? Well, I love what we're doing, so that really helps, but I definitely think having a support system is really important and listener, if you don't have a support system, find a therapist. I. Am so you don't even mean that in a cheeky way. No, I don't mean it in a cheeky way. I'm serious. Like, find a therapist. It's really important that you have someone to talk to. I have a spouse who's supportive and I also have you guys and I have a lot of other people in my life who are great, cheers on and also supportive. But sometimes I just need to talk to my therapist and I love having therapist and I think we should destigmatize. Having a therapist, it's. Really important, even. If you do have a support system, get a. Therapist. No. Yeah, I have a great support system and it's important for me to have a non. Well, she's kind of objective because she likes me, but someone else who's like not in the everyday of my life. But also key is if you have someone who is not supportive, who brings you down, things like that. If you're trying to achieve a dream, that is like having a rock in your shoe. Yeah, that's not the person you go to to celebrate like. They. They won't give you what you're hoping to get. Yes, without you guys and my support system, like shout out to my husband he is. I've been working a lot of hours and he has been doing a lot of the pet stuff, a lot of the dog walking, a lot of the chores, a lot of the laundry, a lot of the dishes. Like a disproportionate amount compared to me. And it doesn't mean it's always going to be that way. But he knows right now I'm, yeah, pursuing a dream, working like 80 hours a week. But I love what I do. And to have a partner who's like, yeah, go for it. And also I get to do it with you guys. Yeah, which makes it. It does make a difference. Plus, we share, we do share the suck, but I by sharing the suck, I also mean not just the tasks, but we're all kind of like this sucks and we like get. To like, can acknowledge it. Yeah, like it's OK. Yeah, I know. Allow each other to feel the hard things. We're not, like, unrealistically optimistic. Really. Yeah, that does suck. Yeah. The thing that I really like about our kind of system is when one of us is totally crashing out. Whoever has like the capacity to take some of that, we do that. Like Emily was way over booked on the amount of stuff that she was carrying like emotionally and logistically, but also like the her To Do List was infinitely long. And so we wrote everything down on her To Do List. We figured out the things that we could do for her and I mean, like you guys have done that for me before and that and that's helpful to know that like, you know, like even if like this is my constant responsibility every week, but like this week, I'm really going through it. Then like I have like on Monday and I was felt like crap. You were like, Oh, I totally got this for you. Like that was great. And what you need to recognize that what you need to do to cope on one day may not be the same as what you need to do to cope on another. For me, the way I'm wired, I'm all the way on or all the way off. That is so true. There is no middle ground and. You can tell when you. Yes. So for me, at the end of the day, what helps me especially in the winter when I get cold, is I take a really long bath like almost every night. And for me it's just a whole process. Otherwise I can't sleep. It's a process of my brain slowing down. Yeah seriously, my body slowing down like and it's also a place I go where if I want I can have 0 stimulation, you know, cuz all day I'm like my phones, but I'm getting text messages, I'm getting notifications from apps I'm getting. So for me that a lot of times that's how I cope at the end of the day. I set it all aside and I get into the bathtub and then I'm just like, deep breath, OK. How do we handle disappointments? Because for us, we are, we are a hopeful trio. We like dine on hope and enthusiasm. So for some people, they're like expecting to be disappointed. So it's not awesome, but it's like for us, like we're not expecting to be disappointed. We. Refuse to be. Disappointed. So we so how do you handle it? Like I've had this happen. Like right now I am in the process of like I will find the people who might also love what we're doing and then invite them to do it together. This I will find them. And sometimes I find people I think will be really great and I don't hear back from them because they hear from a bazillion people. So like, I know this intellectually, but it can be really difficult. So for me, the way I handle those disappointments is a what's my next step? Cuz I'm gonna move on, do something new and BI really. And I think we share this. I celebrate no matter how small a win is. That's true. We're we're like, we got another like follower. We're like, yeah, we do. I feel like I haven't had like a ton of disappointments in this side. Everything's been really exciting because we're just like, we're getting so many different opportunities and we're growing so much and we keep meeting amazing people. And like, yes, maybe we're not making like $1,000,000 partnerships right now. But also we met so many people at the Home and Garden Show that we're so excited to be a part of what we're doing. And like, we didn't want to do this because of the $1,000,000 partnership. We wanted to do it because of those people that also want the same thing. So like, yeah, the other stuff would be a bonus, but we don't really dwell a lot on the disappointments. We kind of just like celebrate the winds and we're like, OK, well this isn't what was supposed to happen. Like this isn't our Ave. if it's not working out. So we'll try something different. I think that really sums it up right there because I was, I'm thinking like I'm rewinding my brain to like November, Emily and Samantha and Arley and we were like, we're going to drop this podcast and then it's going to have 10,000. Listen, OK, I'm sorry that was you, OK? That was a. Little more. Realistic. That was me. Yeah. But when that didn't happen, well, first Emily's like, you know what, we're going to create entire other ecosystem around this online. And we were like, great, because we didn't know what that meant. No. She did though, and like we'll. Post a little bit on the Internet. When we look at our metrics now, which we do, we try not. We did it every day for a while, but we tried to do it like a couple times a week now. But when we look at it, we're looking at short form views in Instagram, Facebook, Tic Tac, YouTube. We're looking at RSS feed, podcast listens. We're looking at YouTube podcast listens. Then we're looking at membership in My handyman Instagram, My handyman Facebook, How to Handyman Instagram, How to Handyman Facebook TikTok Subscribe. Yes. This is the community of men and women, women primarily, but guys too, who have come together because they also think this is cool. So when we look at the growth, there's no like 10 million in this one bucket, but it's always bigger in every single bucket every time we look. And so I think what you say about like, OK, it's not doing what we thought it would here, but we're also working here, and we're working here, and we're working here and we're working here. When you weave it all together, you're creating something really remarkable. I already talked about therapy, but mental health is really important, especially when you're doing something that like takes a lot of your heart and soul to do. And I think for especially for my mental health, it's important for me to acknowledge said disappointment and like, realize that like, yeah, that is a bummer. Like, it is sad. And it's not good to just like be like, oh, moving on, which we don't do. We do. We. All acknowledge, but there is a certain hope in knowing like this isn't the only opportunity and for you listener, it's never the only opportunity you have. There's always more opportunity. But also they I know people will tell you online all the time, practice gratitude, practice gratitude, practice gratitude, but I seriously it like psychologically has been proven that it reformats your brain. So when I'm feeling like the other day we were kind of all like, this sucks like. This is really. Hard. We were talking. About Marley and I were spiraling, yeah. And I, I sat us down and I said, and it's a little, but I said, I think we need to talk about what we're grateful for right now. Like I think it's really important that we acknowledge like through this stock, there is some stuff and it's not like a toxic way. It's just like. No, it's not like everything is fine. This thing didn't happen. It's like, yes, there's some sucky things happening, but let's not forget that this other list of things are also happening. It's like a. Whole picture type thing. Like when you paint a picture, you still have to paint parts that are dark to like, otherwise the light is no good in comparison. I mean, I can tell you in real life if there's a spider on me, I don't care if there's $1,000,000 next to me. I am only responding to the spider. And that's the problem is sometimes the circumstances of our life are the spider and we forget that there's a lot of other cool things going on and. Obviously there are circumstances in which it's like everything, it's really hard. And when you experience grief and loss and those kinds of things, everything is really hard. But also there are good things still. So like, and I think once you start like acknowledging the good things, like it's more of like a salad of life, like good and bad. I do like want to just identify this feeling that I think we all have is we get an idea and then we develop like hopes and dreams on that idea and we kind of like think of what something would look like and we get excited about. Like the? Future that this idea. Would hold and. Having it not pan out is disappointing because it means an end to that specific Little Dream. And like little like imaginary I guess life or the. Picture that we've painted, the vision that we've. Created yes and then we have to change it which like it doesn't necessarily move you back a skep, but it makes you like have to get there in a different way, which is difficult but I mean we I feel like we've been pretty good about it to be honest. It feels kind of like we acknowledge the fact that it's disappointing, and then sometimes we're like, but then we're like, OK, well, we'll do something different. Yeah, like. It'll be OK but also I love the picture analogy because even some of the greatest painting painters of all time, when you do like an X-ray of their painting, there's an under painting that was different like so even some of the greatest works of art you've ever seen. And I feel like I'm starting to sound like the clipped, scary TikTok people life. Is great and. You can be great, but seriously, if life is like a painting, some of the greatest artworks you've ever seen have been repainted and they are probably freaking amazing prior to that, but it's something better. Like I just, I, I like, I will not get into politics, but I will say the world, the state of the world is devastating right now. Like genuinely I, I'm, they make both of them make fun of me because I'm very up with the news and it's very just devastating. I, I'm very empathetic. I love people and so like that darkness can creep in and it's OK to accept some of that, but also light pushes back darkness. Yeah, you have to. You have like, if you're in the dark shed, at some point you have to walk out of the shed. And so yeah, like when the world is sucky, you have to create the community in which like we didn't used to be this like globalized, which is fine. Like globalization is amazing. Like, I mean this in like a perspective of like social media, like we can see everything like used to be definitely more community oriented and like in a smaller bubble. And so it's hard like having access to all this horrible stuff going on. And I love. Yeah, we just didn't used to know. Everything, yeah. Quantity of horrible things that were happening and I. Genuinely love humanity like I think humanity will event like goodwill prevail. And so it's just like hard sometimes to watch the to see stuff happening, but the only thing you are responsible for is what you put out into the world. And when you genuinely make an effort. Yeah, this. Isn't like a Hoo ha kind of thing, This is a like, do you leave the people you encounter better than you found them? And you also have to do that to your own self. Yeah, you have to have positive self talk and be like this didn't paint out. But you know what? I tried my. Best and. So. Also, we are so incredibly determined that like, none of us are like, this won't work out. We're all just like, how? How are we making this? Work not will it, but. How? Yes, because we are going to make this work. Because women need us to make this work. Yeah. Women need to know how to take care of their own houses because it brings financial independence, emotional independence. It gives you the ability to choose who comes into your home, how you spend your money, whether you decide to do things yourself. This is about having choices and agency in your own home. And women need need to have that. Some people may say it's not that serious, but it really is that serious. It's also like kind of a community based acknowledgement of women having general autonomy and, yeah, having people come into your life when you want them to, not so much out of necessity. And, you know, we have gotten to a place in our society where women no longer technically need somebody else to come in and either provide for them or do certain things. Yes, because we're not like, you know, women are 1800s. Yeah. But. And now so we're we're talking about that in a construction standpoint, but it stands like our reasoning stands in all different aspects and having community of like minded women who also want to share the idea to other women who might not know this already that they have access to any kind of information that they want and we will help them get it And so if they want. To invite somebody else into their life. They can, but they don't have to. It's it's autonomy in a general sense of life, not just in home ownership. This is just our specific contribution to that. As we wrap up, I'm going to bring us back to our first question, which was what do you do when you're trying to bring something incredibly important to life and you're struggling? And I'll just leave us with this thought. What I've learned about myself over the years is sometimes it's not that you think I'm the person who can and will absolutely make this happen. I'm the person who cannot not make this happen. Chewed up. Sometimes that's enough. Thanks for joining us, folks. Come see us on Friday. Yes, and follow us if you want to see us daily at How to Handyman on most platforms. Yes, we'll see you soon.
