My business week in Crete

We came home from Crete on Thursday afternoon and I feel like a new person!

We have almost just been lying in the deck chair constantly and talked extremely much, both loud and low. For some reason I feel like a slightly wiser person now, but it's probably as simple as I'm just completely rested;) But regardless, I feel more tagged than ever - tagged on to start exercising and even meditate (has kind of never happened before) but also tagged on to continue building his career of course!

I really hope that this feeling continues, last Friday when I came to work and had so much to deal with, the feeling disappeared a little immediately haha. But I probably just have to get on the track again :)

After the holiday job
Our internet was very tough in Greece (including the mobile data) so I just did the most urgent and pushed the rest of the work that popped up. We were only gone for a week.

However, this resulted in me on Friday (the first and only working day at the salon) feeling like a small, small person in a large pile of leaves, except that the pile of leaves consisted of to-do notes and email type.

Some days you love being an entrepreneur and other days you wish you could be a regular employee who had a substitute who did all your work when you are free. Not to come home to a mountain of work that has been piled up every free day and miss the time when you worked at the counter at a lunch restaurant hahaha.

I also had 3 customers but it hardly felt like a job in comparison, mostly a positive breathing break :)

We left an empty desk inside the office before we left and now we could not even put down our computers because it looked like this. There was also a lot of hassle with stuff so Miska had to sit in telephone queues and fix a lot of boring things while he bent off the piles of paper. Pjuh! I'm SO lucky not to have the company alone!

The co-owners brainstorm - and paint!
This one with traveling away with Annika and Miska who I run the salon together with turned out to be a really good idea :) To both have time to hang out privately and talk shit for a whole week but also get past all the "daily job talk" about ending up more in inspiring conversations about the future, values, goals, etc. So worth it!

We need to become better at booking like this, I think it is important that we who run the company get some team building too and that it in turn spreads to the whole company. It is well-invested money that gives a return in the long run :)

When we had rested for a few days, the creativity started with body painting on Annika's pregnant belly:

Annika started painting the pumpkin on herself while Miska was away training, then Miska finished it when he returned. Good teamwork!

The baby kicked a lot when Miska painted, he tickled it with the brush under his feet maybe;) By the way, we have started calling the baby Helmi, a mix of Helena and Miska haha! I wish Annika did not come up with something better and that the baby will be called that in the end!

Here is the result! :)

Miska got the urge to do something even cuter as well and the next day Annika's stomach looked like this:

Cute, cute, cute, cute, cute, cute! :)

Get rid of performance anxiety and stop waiting!
During the holiday week, I have listened to an incredible number of podcasts and have realized that I am starting more and more to have released my performance anxiety, which I wrote a lot about about 1 year ago. So nice! :)

For example, I listened to Isabella Löwengrip in the Success Podcast and I have always been so impressed with her and devoured every podcast she has been in! But before when I listened to her (and many other successful people) I could get a little stomach ache and felt kind of lazy in comparison haha. I, as only have a company, no children and still do not manage to keep up with exercise, always have fixed nails, never outgrown in the hair (and also have it perfectly curled every day) and also have time to hang out with friends and family, recover and feel good and always be happy . I compared myself so much to others that I even felt bad sleeping 8 hours a night because "a true entrepreneur wakes up at 4 in the morning".

But what I am becoming more and more confident about, which helps me a lot about performance anxiety, is that for me is in fact, not the goal of being the most successful person or having as many billions as possible. I want to be successful, but what that means is a question of definition. I know what my goals are, which in turn leads to me being able to take on all the awesome success tips that entrepreneurs share at the same time as I understand that exactly every detail does not have to agree with me! :)

For example. Isabella talks a lot about investing and gives a lot of tips on how to start a business. In a blog post, she wrote that it is better to start with a little capital (eg saved money or borrow from family and friends) and build from small to large instead of bringing in investors who become partners in the company. Getting help from investors should be the last option because the more people who share the profit, the less you get. And I completely agree, the only thing I put into my company was 23,000 saving money which in my individual company grew to a turnover of half a million in one year, which meant that I could form a limited company with Annika and Miska and now turn over we several million a year.

But why I chat about this now is because I'm wondering if this is really the most important tip for our next company, that is, the make-up brand we are in the starting blocks to start. Here's it: My goal is to have a successful company that is fun to work with and that I can have a decent economy with Spanish houses and security. But I do not require billions as well :) If it then requires investors (who can also help with experience) who help us create this dream company in 3 years instead of 10 years, then I do not necessarily think it is bad even if they own part of the company and takes part of the profit. As long as I thrive, have fun and feel good, it doesn't matter if I do actually could have been a little richer as well.

Now I chat on here but as I said I had a lot of time for reflection in Crete :) But another thing that Isabella talked about that is also related to this is that you should not wait for the right opportunities but you should drive on and take risks and never lose speed. We have been waiting with this with the new make-up company just to wait for the right opportunity and build up the salon properly first. And I think it has been wise even though it has tested my patience;) But now I was more pissed than ever by Isabella's words and should really put in the gas now I feel! I will feel so good about it!

Never allow waiting to become a habit. Live your dreams and take risks. Life is happening now :)

Happy girl lying in the sun listening to inspiring podcasts!

Useful restlessness
After the last holiday trip, I wrote in my business week post that I was full of energy thanks to active rest, so I did things all the time, which in turn helped the brain to rest from work and musts.

On the contrary, this trip was extremely much physical rest, we have mostly been lying in the sunbeds actually :) This resulted in me becoming so extremely restless at the end of the week and I LOVED that feeling! It really is a sign that you are rested! The day before we went home it was quite cloudy to and fro and then I worked at the computer in the deck chair (with pictures and the presentation for the new company that does not require internet) and then I got bored when the battery ran out and then regretted a bit that I took that extra cup of coffee because I kind of wished I was a little more calm and relaxed haha.

So now I have received my dose of leave and both active rest and physical rest within a month, so now I have all the prerequisites to put in second gear in company building! ;)

I had to crop the face away from the picture because Miska took it in secret and my concentration face was not nice hahaha. Here you see me at least in action in the deck chair, coffee cup in one hand, cat kiss (crazy cat lady became friends with all cats in Greece) and the computer balancing on one leg while I cut and fix with pictures with the other hand :)

That cat I was so close to taking home ♥ I tried not to get too attached to her but it was impossible, she sat in my arms every dinner and the first two days there were never cats around the pool area but so she found me there one day, then she waited for me at the same deck chair and lay on my lap for several hours every day after that! But it is not completely uncomplicated to bring a cat home and also my cat Viktoria does not like other cats so it felt shitty towards her as well. But I've been having nightmares and missing Tros (as I named her) every night since we got home. Dangerous for the heart to name a cat you will not meet again I know haha, but it just came, suddenly I just called her Believe it or not. We checked if it means anything in Greek and apparently it means "you eat" which was incredibly fitting because I fed her with a number of fish pieces every night;)

I talked to a customer about this last Friday and realized that it is not so strange that I am such an extreme cat person, because I grew up with my grandmother who lived out in the country had over 50 cats when I was little! I remember one morning when I woke up and could not move because I had so many cats lying and cuddling on my whole body haha. That would be the dream today ♥

Another sneak peek á la Miska, of a happy girl and a happy Belief ♥ If any of you ever live in the hotel Mediterraneo in Heraklion in Crete and see this little pussy, I will be eternally grateful if you pat her from me and maybe send me a picture that she's fine! :)

Then last Saturday I started the day with work at home on the couch for a few hours and caught up with the most important things that I did not have time for last Friday. Classic cozy job where you are happy with everything you achieve, but it hardly feels like you work when you cozy around newly awake in slippers.

Now it will be no more vacation for a while but next week the hard gloves will go on :)

Hugs are !!