[00:00:00] Rebecca: Hello and welcome to episode 70 of the Rebecca Saunders show, seven Zero what a milestone. I'm gonna start the show by saying thank you so much for tuning in and for listening in every week. We wouldn't be at episode 70 if you didn't do that, so I don't take for granted that you listen to the show and I am so grateful.

That you listen and share with friends, family, colleagues so they can get our message out there as well. So, today's episode is a little bit of an interesting one. it's a topic of conversation that's been going around friends, my circle of business colleagues a lot in the last few months.

I have just spent Last weekend with a group of girlfriends, four of us spent a weekend in the mountains. It was beautiful. And you know what, we had plans to do a couple of walks, take it easy. We wanted to go out for dinner just once we'd stayed in, cooked in, we all did our little thing to make it easy on everyone else.

One person made dinner the first night, the next person did breakfast. I had all the snacks covered. I'm the queen of snack boards. That was my game of the weekend. And then we organised a fancy dinner out and, you know, placed about morning tea on the last, on the last day. So it was just two nights. Very lovely. The [00:02:00] four of us together absolutely needed by every single one of us. And one of the things that has been cropping up is that everyone is so tired. You know, we are still very much, very tired. The impacts of covid and the length of, you know, the huge disruption that we had is definitely kicking in in more ways than we realise and it started, you know, the conversation around why we were feeling that way, how we can get out of that funk, what does that look like? And it really boils down to, in my opinion, our ability to ask for help. 

And as these conversations were trickling in, and as I've had conversations with my wider network of business colleagues and I've seen newsletters come through on my inbox post made on social media, it is very clear that, a lot of people are struggling and that actually asking for help is fundamentally really difficult for a lot of people.

But on the flip side of that, I find it really fascinating because I am one of those people who I will happily ask people for help, and I will happily be willing to help if I get asked. And it's been something that has trickled on or not trickled on. It's been very, very present in my world since oh, from whenever I can remember.

You know, I'm always up for asking whether I can do something. Asking if you've got something I could borrow a really great example um, of that just during Covid where I messaged my neighbor and I went, don't suppose you've got a pestle and mortar, do you like I don't have one and I'm looking to make this recipe and it requires one and I can't really go out and find one right now cuz all the shops are shut.

And she went, Yeah, yeah, of course. Pop over, like, you know, come grab it from out the front. And I'm thinking, you know what? That to [00:04:00] me, I could have just stayed home and thought about the recipe I wanted to make and not done anything about it being quite bored. Or I could have sent that message and gone, Hey, I need this.

And now I know me, doing a recipe and needing a pestle and mortar is very, very different to the energy struggles, the mental struggles, the sheer volume that is sitting on our shoulders right now. And people are genuinely struggling and need help, but can't articulate it. The principle there is, unless you ask, you don't know.

You know, there's almost that saying of if you don't ask, you don. What's the worst that can happen? People can say no. And so I think it's really important, you know, just to step back and think of where do you need help in your world right now? You know, could it be that you need help with sales, you know, in your business?

Is it things are slowing down or getting a lot harder cuz of the economical crisis? You know, is it that you just, you just need cash flows? So you just need to level with your, your clients and. Guys, I can't, I can't flick your invoices anymore. You know, this is the reason why, like, I need, I need you to pay them on time and, and, and settle up.

Is it that you just need someone to go on a walk with, you know, or have a talk with? What are the things that's gonna be able to help you relieve some of the stress, possibly the anxiety that's going on in your world right now? Because you're not. Right, you're not alone. And there are people there that are willing to help or willing to guide who are helpful in sharing their past experiences and their lessons learned, so you don't have to learn the same lessons and who are in the same boat.

You know that they're very much in the same boat. you know, a conversation for all of us over the weekend. What, what's next? You know, we've done some awesome stuff and, but what's next? Now you know I'm still enjoying what I'm doing. I'm loving what I'm doing. You know, for me, I've still got my video production company going and, you know, I love the projects we do there.

But [00:06:00] I know that on top of that I wanna do something different. And so I'm doing something different. You know, I'm creating new things and I'm putting it out into the world and it's really scary. And my help might ask for help at the time. And is to you guys right now, you know it's, I've started the champagne lounge so that people can.

Meet new people to share like-minded ideas, to have an online cheer squad for all the things that we just wanna virtually high five someone with for achieving in our day, and to have that joy and connection that I think is very much what I don't think I know is very much missing in so many people's worlds.

And so my ask at the weekend, and I ask you now, Come join me inside the Champagne lounge, meet new people. You know, get rid of that loneliness feeling. Share the word about the champagne lounge to your business buddies and, business leader friends who just want that little pick me up every so often and just, you know, want to be able to brainstorm with like-minded people and have conversations and just have a lot more joy and connection.

It's, it's that simple, you know, it's, it's about coming in and just saying, And sharing those, those feelings and those thoughts in a really safe place that has no judgment cuz we've left that at the door. Thank you very much. And so that was my ask, that was my ask to them. And there was a lot of asks around the table.

Not necessarily straightforward, Hey, I need this, can you help? But it was more. I just need to let this out so that I've let it out into the world. And in doing it and talking it through, it's gonna make more clarity for me. It's giving me more clarity in the situation that I'm in. And so my question to you in today's short and sweet episode, really I, is that, are you asking for help enough?

Are you asking for help when you need it or are you struggling? solo You know It doesn't need to be a solo fight. It doesn't need to be a solo struggle. You don't need to be looking all beautiful and fancy on social media and crumbling behind the scenes, and I'm not saying that you need to put up. You know, [00:08:00] those sympathy things of woe is me?

Life is hard right now. You know, I'm really struggling. You don't have to put that out publicly. That's not, that's not what we need to do in terms of our branding and what we put on social media. But you do need that support network. You know, we do need that network, that tribe, that cheer squad that have us when we're starting to fall down, that pick up the pieces when we've crumbled apart that can share the.

ideas And give us different perspectives of things we've maybe may have not talked about or thought about before. You know, there's such a wide variety of thoughts and ways of doing things and thinking about things that we may not have even thought about. Being stuck in our own heads and, and not sharing our problems, our issues, our thought processes, our funkiness with somebody else.

whether or not you join me inside the Champaign Lounge and join that conversation, you know, come and meet new people that are open to having those higher level conversations um, about business struggles, life struggles, balancing that, all the, all of it, you know, it's, it's hard. We're, we're super special humans trying to run businesses and families and live lives and just make our dreams a reality.

You know, we. A minority of the population doing that. but we are here, we are around, there are other people just like you, you know, that think bigger, think differently and who are crumbling quietly. And I'm suffering behind the scenes because they've got no outlet of places to share. And so my takeaway for you is don't struggle alone.

You know, there are people out there that are like-minded. That will have your back even as strangers. So my question is, are you asking for help in all the right places? Are you asking for help at all? And what's the one thing that you can ask for help for today listening to this podcast that will just take the stress away or just let you know that there's someone there for you and they've got your back.

It's a big. It's a deep one, but it's short and sweet for a reason, because [00:10:00] that's all I've gotta say. Ask for help. Don't struggle alone. Find your tribe, and if you need a tribe, I'll see you inside the Champagne Lounge. Thanks for listening. I'll see you next time.