#awinewith Juliet Kirby
MEET JULIET
Juliet is the Founder of Crack That Coconut.
Find Juliet here:
Crack That Coconut website or Instagram @crackthatcoconut
Transcript
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Well, Juliet, thank you so much for being here today. I'm so excited to chat with you. We spoke a couple of weeks ago now and we got talking about founders and burnout and starting a side hustle and growing a business, and I went, oh my God, we've got to talk to you on the Spark TV channel and podcast. So I'm so appreciative that you're spending your time with us for a cheeky virtual vino. Thank you for having me. I'm so glad. Of course, of course. So why don't we start out with a little bit of your background and how you actually got to starting your business? Crack that coconut. Yeah. Yeah. So I've always been really interested in business and I think had a very entrepreneurial spirit since I was a young kid. I know my mom tells a story of when I was four years old and had my first French croissant, I said, I need to open up a bakery that's real French food in our neighborhood. Oh my God, that's very perceptive at such a young age. Young age, I know. And so that spirit has stayed with me, but what I've been passionate about, where I've been directed, that attention has evolved. Still love ants though.
(01:32):
No, never die. Exactly. I ended up studying science and law at university and went into management consulting just to learn the ropes of how businesses operate and really enjoyed that. But during my time in management consulting, I was working pretty long hours and burning the stick at both ends and also suffering from an eating disorder. So really wasn't looking after my health at all or very well. But at this time I started to realize the importance of looking after our mental health and noticed that a lot of people were struggling with the demands of consulting and not really talking about it. And so it was while I was doing that kind of work, I started doing these weekly meditations and stood up a mental health committee and really started to find this real passion for helping people realize the importance of it and talking about it and giving them some of the tools that I was using to manage my mental health.
(02:43):
And it was sort of when Covid hit in 2020, I slowed down, the pace slowed down a bit, it took some time to reflect and got some advice from a friend who sort of suggested I started getting help for my own mental health struggles. And through that process I started getting a lot better and started really thinking about how can I help more people and help 'em avoid getting to the state that I got to where it took a while to, because I was sort of burnt out because I just hadn't been looking after myself properly. And how do I help people avoid that and avoid getting to that kind of state that I got to? So yeah, that kind of started this exploration and conversations with myself, talking to other founders in the mental health space and other people who had gone through similar challenges and kind of realized that the real challenge is that we don't seek the tools that are available to us when we need the most.
(03:52):
We sort of wait for someone to intervene or for us to hit rock bottom before we take action. And so I kind of zeroed in and realized that there was such an opportunity in breaking the mental health stigma and having more conversations about it with those who are closest to us because they're there. It's just we're not able to recognize maybe what we're going through when we need to start having that conversation. So that's kind of what led me to starting Crack that coconut, which is a podcast and car game cracking the mental health stigma. So good. Yeah, epic name. I love it.
(04:34):
Yeah, so that's why it's just been really, really important for me to open up more conversations about mental health. So yeah. Well, I mean, I love it and it's really interesting, and I think this is why I really wanted to speak with you more is because when we see founder media entrepreneur headlines, so often we see founder burnout as one of the things that we're kind of bombarded with. Sometimes I see founder burnout and I think, oh my God, I'm burned out. It's that headline that triggers me. But I guess I wanted to get your perspective on what Founder Burnout is, what it looks like and how we do actually get to that point.
(05:20):
And that's such an important conversation to have and I'm so excited to talk to you about it. As a founder yourself, I'm sure you can relate to some of the things. Yes, I'm taking notes as we speak. Yeah, so I mean, for just a bit of context, the World Health Organization actually defines burnout as reaching a state of, it's like a syndrome where I've got it here, resolving from chronic workplace stress that hasn't been successfully managed. And yeah, for as a founder, you almost are the business, and often it's you alone or even with a team, there's a lot of pressure you put on yourself for the business to succeed to be what you want it to be. And I think the real challenge with founder burnout is putting your whole identity into your work. And this can happen to so many people. It doesn't have to be founders, but I think it's particularly prevalent in founders because it is your passion, it's something you're throwing your whole self into.
(06:30):
And I think that's where burnout occurs when your work is your identity. And so I think what, it's so interesting that you actually said that because we even had a personal branding masterclass yesterday at Spark, and I'm like, just hearing you talk. I'm like, oh my God, you're right. Because even our personal brands become about our work. So you think about not just having a glass of wine on the weekend, but you're probably talking about and doing something that's related to your business. So it's like you can't escape it, I think. Yeah. No one's ever said that before, that your whole identity is wrapped up in the business you've created. I think that's a hugely important point, and I think it sort of feels counterintuitive at first that you need to disassociate yourself or your identity from your business because you think the more I throw into it, the more I care about it, the more dedicated I am, and the more it's going to succeed.
(07:34):
But what you're kind of making yourself and the business susceptible to is that you take the failures or challenges or roadblocks personally when they happen to your business. So things like an idea doesn't go well, you all of a sudden think it's reflective of you and it's whatever your trees are, me, whether you are smart enough, whether you're doing the right thing, whether you should have taken this risk on going all in on a new business. And what actually ends up happening is that when there's a failure in the business, and if you are so attached to your identity is so attached to the business, then you break down as well. And so then there's actually no one there to pull the pieces together and to do what the business needs to do to move forward. And so even though it does feel a bit counterintuitive at first, it's actually so important to have a detached identity because you need to be there for when something goes wrong as the founder to put it back together and keep the business on track.
(08:50):
So I think it's actually a really important but difficult thing to do. Yeah, totally. Would we, I mean, it's interesting, I am sitting here hearing the things you're saying going, oh my gosh, this is me. But if we're new to this concept, how might we identify that we are burnt out or that we need to, even if maybe we're not burnt out, but we're on the road to being burnt out, is there anything that we can, I guess, have a little bit of self-awareness, have a little bit of, do a little bit of a stock take of ourselves? Are there any kind of signs that we should be looking for that we might not be on the right path? Yeah, definitely. So I think burnout, when you can identify that burnout's starting to arise when you're feeling really depleted, you've lost that oomph that, oh, this feels amazing to do it.
(09:46):
Work starts to feel a little bit more like a drag or that you kind of finish a day and you just feel so depleted rather than energized, which is how you used to feel. So I think that's when you can start identifying and seeing that the burnout is occurring. And it's also things like not being able to switch off, carrying stress through from your work into your personal life. So having snaps at your partner and being, not sleeping, not sleeping, and not finding the enjoyment out of the things that you usually find enjoyment. I think that they're all real telling signs that I think often come up and we know that they're there and we sort of know why they're coming up. We don't really act upon them. And yeah, that's sort of your question about what can you do when we start to recognize these things coming up.
(10:47):
I think firstly, if you've never really done the work to understand your values, I think that's a really important first step to identify that you are not your work and you actually have other aspects of your life that are really important to you. And so writing 'em down on a piece of paper, and yes, my work is one aspect, but also my family, my partner, going out with friends on a Friday night, whatever it is, doing exercising three times a week, and you start to map them out and realize, I think it can help you realize that your work is not your full identity. It's a be all and end all. Yeah. At the end of the day, if the business doesn't succeed, you will still have a lot of value in your life. And I think it's being able to detach from that. And something that my mom said to me once, which just always makes me laugh, when I was getting really worked off, I had totally attached my identity to my work when I was in consulting, so it was something I had to unlearn.
(11:54):
But she said, doctors, they have to come home after a really hard day. They might've lost a patient or whatever. And they've got to be able to detach themselves from it and go home and keep living their life because they did all that they could do within to help that person. I think getting some perspective is helpful. Oh my god. It's so funny because my partner says to me, they're like, there is someone performing brain surgery right now. Not as stressed as you. I'm like, damn it. Yeah. Well, it's like stresses. We all feel stressed. It's like how do we make sure that we don't take that home with us and carry that with us all the time? And that's where the challenge lies as well. So that's probably a good segue into the podcast, the card game. What are some strategies that we can use as founders once we've kind of gone, okay, I think we need to do something here, or I think we need to ask ourselves some serious questions.
(12:58):
What else can we do to be starting to mend, I guess? Yeah, I think firstly looking after yourself and making sure that you do the things that are most important to you. So getting enough sleep is something for me that if I don't get enough sleep, then my energy just goes off a cliff over time. I think it's also making time in each day to do something that connects you with yourself. And so for some people like me, it's meditation. For others, it might be journaling might be going for a walk around the block or having a phone call with your partner or your mom or something that you just makes you feel connected. I think that's really important, making time for other things because work can feel like it's taking up all that time, but I've been listening to this other podcast and 10 minutes of your day or 14 minutes of your day is 1% of your day.
(14:02):
I mean, you think about that, it's just nothing to be able to give yourself 14 minutes to make you feel connected, relaxed, do whatever you need to do, and it's so impactful. So I think they're sort of more tactical things, but yeah, it varies person to person, but I would say doing what you love, what you value, making sure that there's time for that in your day or week and being kind to yourself. Yeah, not the berating negative that we sometimes partake in when we're feeling guilty that we're taking time for ourselves. I think that that's one thing I've learned is to speak kindly to myself and give myself a little bit of grace when I feel like things are getting a little bit out of control. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think it's easier said than done, but the more you manage it and prevent it from getting to that place where you do burnout and then you have to spend the time recovering.
(15:07):
Yeah. The better it is for yourself, for your health and your business. And so interesting that when you were doing management consulting, you kind of got to that point where you were burnt out and now you must be a sucker for punishment because now you're both working a job and you have a business. So talk to me about that process. So how are you finding managing both? How do you do that successfully or however you do, and how are you managing not becoming burnt out? Juggling two things. I know we've got quite a few people that tune in who do actually do both, and they haven't quite taken the leap to full-time yet. Yeah, no, it's a good question and I think it's something that I'm still working on and obviously actively managing myself at the moment. It is a lot of work. I think the difference in how I feel about it now to where I was at in management consulting, there was a few things.
(16:21):
Firstly, I look after my physical and mental health a lot better, so I make time for exercise. I eat a healthy diet and I meditate almost daily. I'm not perfect, but I do make time for it when I notice that my energy levels are really coming down. And secondly, I think it's because I find so much passion and purpose in the work that I'm doing that it keeps me motivated to kind of keep going. And so yeah, I think that's the second. And then third, I'm better at being able to detach myself from the work. So I go to my work, I do my job, but then when I come home, I leave that behind. Or if I'm in my work from home office, I leave it in the study and close the door, close the door. Sometimes you slam the door and that's okay too.
(17:18):
Yeah. And kind of make that active effort to switch to whether it's crack, that coconut time or social time or exercise. I often use exercise or shower to kind of break the two apart or my commute sometimes. But yeah, I think it is challenging, but what keeps the side hustle going is really my passion for the project and for helping people and the feedback I get that kind of just keeps going, that when you feel like you're actually helping people and it sort of makes me so excited and I just want to do more, honestly, if I could, I would do more. But I think because I know I'm probably at my limit I capacity that I kind of just have to go at the pace that suits me. I hear lots of stories of podcasts or other founders who took their business from zero to a hundred in two years, and I'm just not going to be like that.
(18:21):
I think while I'm not doing it full time, realizing and appreciating that I've got to grow at a more slower sustainable pace. And I think that's a really good point to underline though because I feel like the hustle culture was such a thing. And especially I feel like when I started my first business scrunch 10 years ago, I feel like for the first eight years it was all hustle culture. It was all like if you're tired, drink coffee. The harder you work, the more you'll get. And I'm actually loving because it was interesting, I went through a personal phase where I was like, I'm just doing things because that's what everyone tells me I should do. I was really showing up in the business, wearing the clothes, doing the things. That's the picture that I had to portray. And it wasn't until I decided that I wanted to run a business my own way, that things actually started to fall into place a lot better for me and the business.
(19:27):
And I love that that has now coincided with the fact that there's a lot of content coming out online around doing it your own way around how people can create a business in so many different ways. You don't have to be the unicorn raise capital, be worth a billion dollar story, you can still have a business that suits you, whether it's your lifestyle, there's people that work remotely who have remote teams who make millions of dollars. There are people that do so many different combinations of business ideas now that I feel like you can actually create something that aligns to you and your values and where you're at in life. And if you do do that, I think that that's such a huge step towards not getting burnt out as well. Yeah, that is so true. And I think you're right. That's the way I think more people are starting to think about it and it just makes it more sustainable and actually more likely for you to keep going with that project and take it into a business.
(20:33):
And I think I have to remind myself quite frequently just because someone else looks like they nailed it all grooved so fast within two years and I'm almost, well, they're just pretending on Instagram realistically, you don't really know about some of these people. Exactly. And you don't, but you sort of compare yourself and so you've just got to remind yourself where you're, you are and what's important. And I think having done the work of identifying what's really important to me and knowing that being healthy, not being exhausted, getting enough sleep is all really important, makes me feel like the way I'm doing it's okay. And yeah, I don't want to start a business that then I feel like this pressure to grow at a certain rate. I think it actually will influence the way I do take it full time when I get to that stage, which will keep, as you said, enable me to create a business that enables me to work in the way that I want to work and at the pace that I want to work out.
(21:42):
And I think a common theme is just being really intentional about it. One of the strategies that you mentioned was sitting down and writing down your values. And I think it's kind of the same for people's business structure. They really need to think about, okay, well have I created a business that aligns to those values that I wrote down or am I operating day to day in a way that aligns to those values? I think that that's so important to be intentional about everything that you do, otherwise the day just passed so quickly and you're a slave to your to-do list, and then it's no wonder that people get burned out. That actually just reminded me of this podcast I listened to and was, I think it was the female startup club, and there was someone about a podcast business that her and her partner had created, and they had created it to give themselves a lifestyle that they wanted where they could have a business that sort of self-operated if they wanted to go away for periods of time, and they kind of wanted to have a small team that they could manage, but then, and that obviously changes the kind of growth and model of the business that you can achieve.
(22:48):
And they ended up getting to the state where they were growing to. They were putting too much emphasis on growth and actually trying to pump out, I dunno, five episodes a week or something. And then they looked back and realized that they had built a business that didn't support the lifestyle they wanted anymore. It was becoming this really demanding thing. And I think then they decided to scale back and go back to the pace that they wanted to operate at. And yeah, it is your choice as a founder, and I think that's amazing that we have that ability to create a work environment that we want to be in. Totally. And it is really interesting too that kind of says to me that it's not a set and forget thing. It is a sit down, write down your values, how's the business going to look?
(23:39):
But you've got to keep checking in with yourself. This isn't just like a, oh, ticked off not getting banned out because we all look like you get excited the height, it's doing really well, and you go, oh, I can be like this. And then yeah, you do have to check in and make sure it's still aligning with the values that you hold. Yeah, no, I love that so much. Okay, so talk to me about the card game because I love, so it opens up conversations. Am I correct in saying that? Do you want to give us just a quick brief on the card game? Yeah, so the card game is designed to open up more meaningful conversations between family and friends, so suitable for ages 11 plus, and it really is conversation starters. So how's your day really? Or some sort of quirky ones. Would you rather talk to animals or speak every human language?
(24:38):
So yeah, it's just designed to spark interesting conversations that actually end up going down lots of different rabbit holes rather than the surface level stuff that sometimes we find ourselves talking about. I love that so much. It's, it reminds me of how some people are on autopilot so much like, hi, how are you? Good, thanks. How are you? Like, oh my God, let me go through those motions. And I think sometimes when we sit down to kind of determine what our values are, it's kind of hard if we haven't opened ourselves up and had a deeper layer of conversation. It's really interesting. My partner's really good at this actually because of the type of work he's in. He asks those really gritty questions and it really does kind of make you stop and think and kind of go, actually, I'm not just giving this lip service.
(25:34):
This is really meaningful. And I guess pushing yourself to really think about what's important to you. And if you don't have someone in your life that does that for you, I love the idea of having the prompt of the card game and actually inviting those conversations with other people that could work amazing in the work. Do you recommend it for the workplaces as well? Yeah, definitely. It's cool. I mean, I think it's, as you said, creating that environment that can be really hard to just start the conversation. And once you have a game and sets the context, and I think something else is really powerful is hearing other people open up about their own experiences and then it enables you to speak up about something that you've been feeling or experiencing that's actually quite similar. And then to build deeper connections. And yeah, I've experienced that myself in playing the game and heard some really great stories of people opening up about pregnancies and big life events because of the card game, which just brings me so much joy and keeps me motivated to keep going with it.
(26:42):
That's so good. I love that everybody needs this card game in their life, in their business and workplaces. This is so good. Okay, so tell me, we're going to wrap. So I would love just thinking about, we've had so many good conversations around burnout, what that looks like, how we can overcome it, how you manage corporate life versus startup life, all of the things we have people who join Spark TV because they're actually wanting to break into starting their own business and they're not quite ready to take the leap. Is there anything that you would tell yourself before starting a business? Any advice that you would give to somebody who's kind of on the fence and feels a little bit nervous? Any words of wisdom that you might offer while we wrap up? Yeah, I love this question. I think my advice would be to just get started, even if it's the smallest thing, we spend all this time dreaming and ideating and we go, oh, is this going to work?
(27:49):
And you talk yourself out of it before you even give it a chance to succeed. And I think the best thing you can do is MVP test your idea in a very small way. And so for me that was with an Instagram page and then a card game and then a podcast. It's like you can actually just put something out into the world and get instant feedback and then that will give you a bit of the taste for it next step. And I think if you get some good feedback, then you keep going and then it's up to you at how much time you want to dedicate to it. If you're still in a full-time job, that could be hard to take that leap. I'm still there, not ready to go in, but I would say just get started one foot forward. I love that so much.
(28:36):
I watched a training this morning as well, and that was one thing they said was just do one thing and get it right and then just do the next thing and get it right. I think sometimes you see other people online and you're like, well, they have a podcast and a YouTube channel and a TikTok and they've got this cool website and they've got five courses and they've got this product, and you're like, oh my God, how do I do all these things? So I just love that advice. Just one thing, get feedback, put one foot in front of the other. You don't have to be Nike on day one, you just get started. That's amazing. Oh my God. Well, you are fantastic. Juliet, thank you so much for joining us today on Spark tv. Cheers. I appreciate having a wine with you. I just know that there's so many people who will dial in to this episode and I think take a look at what they're doing and if we have helped one person just avoid that burnout or take some steps to look after themselves, then I think you and I have done our jobs today, so I'm stoked.
(29:46):
Thank you for being here. Oh, amazing. Thank you so much, Danielle, for having me. It's been a real pleasure and lovely to chat all things about crack that coconut and yeah, amazing what you're doing. And thank you so much for the Spark program. I think it's been so amazing. And yeah, it's people like you who sort of help me keep going. So thanks, and that's a success. I'm so excited. Awesome. Cheers. Awesome. Cheers.
