As we celebrate the 4th anniversary of Costron + Co, a women-led business co-founded by a dynamic mother-daughter duo, we reflect on this incredible journey with immense gratitude and pride. What started as a shared dream has grown into a thriving business, fueled by our passion for helping others, the joy of watching our clients transform, and the unique bond that defines our work.

In a previous journal I discussed that we are all leaders. Whether we have a job title that denotes leadership or not – we are leaders. We lead in our career, our businesses, and our relationships. Every time we engage with another human, we are in a moment of deciding how we will lead -how we will show up in that conversation.

In this journal I want to take a closer look at natural leadership styles by touching on the 4 leadership domains. Being aware of the leadership choices that you make - What you choose to do in your leadership roles - is heavily influenced by past experience with positive and negative leaders, and your personal experience to this point.

Summer calls many of us to slow down, rest, and receive the gifts that this warm season provides. The phrase “work hard, play hard” comes to mind as I hear folks speak about how hard they’ve been working, how many hours they’ve put in, and that they haven’t been able to do anything else other than expel time and energy in work.

The personal development industry has frequently used these feelings of overwork with words that make us consider the ways that we are taking care of ourselves and work life balance. I have been reflecting and considering two of these words - “boundaries” and “self care” that seem to be prolific in our cultural framework.

I’m struggling with this journal entry. I usually come to the keyboard with a theme and framework and, with relative ease and editing from Katherine, (check out her website at www.katherineburrowscreative.com ) the journal entry unfolds in an authentic way.

This isn’t happening today. I am sitting in my privileged life, working remotely in a campground at the southern end of Bruce Peninsula. I was intending to write about leadership and dig deeper into the leadership domains, but Canada Day is just a couple of days away and I am struggling with focus.

As business owners, it’s common to feel the weight of having to know everything and do it all well. Though we feel called to start our business from our passion and purpose, we may not immediately have the capital to invest in staffing, employees, or subcontractors. Instead, we feel like we have no choice but to do it all. However, when entrepreneurs wear too many hats, we become stretched thin, frustrated, annoyed, and overwhelmed. If we don’t take steps to relieve the pressure, we can quickly become burned out.

The best news is that we don’t always need financial capital to be able to find economical ways to delegate duties within our business. There are creative business and compensation models that can support your heart as the business owner, create work opportunities with someone else’s areas of strength, and in turn increase community reach and profit of your business.

The stories we are taught to believe are endless: don’t cry or you'll appear weak, don’t show emotion or people won’t take you seriously, don’t let your clients know you are struggling or they won’t think you are professional. Your vulnerability shows how fragile you are. Your stories of pain, fear, and conflict confirm that you’re not enough. 

In a society that systematically praises strength, fearlessness, and power, we are conditioned to lean away from the wholeness of being human. The dark parts of self are not to be seen by our community and even ourselves. And they must especially not be shown in our business. We push, dismiss, resist, numb, and/or avoid our fear because it’s not “supposed” to be here.

There is extensive discussion on emotional intelligence, and the impact that it has on our self-awareness, self-agency, and self-acceptance. We also know that gaining this wisdom and journeying through discovery would serve us well in business and in life.

How does this fit into the world of entrepreneurship.

Running your own business comes with a lot of pressure: pressure on your time and energy, pressure to perform a certain way, pressure to keep up the appearance of success.

As the Owner & Founder of your company you have many hats and responsibilities: accounting, finance management, networking, marketing and advertising endeavours, social media and website management, maybe management of your team members. With all this endless pressure, it’s easy to lose track of your why.

Why did you start your business in the first place?

Why do you want to do this everyday?

Why are you passionate about helping people in just this way?

As I write this blog, we are in our second winter of the pandemic and closing in on the 1-year mark of when COVID-19 started to impact our lives.

I remember the week leading up to the announcement of restrictions on travel, and our daily habits. I was actually visiting Kingston, part family trip but for the most part a work trip. The work part involved connecting with the wonderful Kingston-based team members that support Find Your Voice Music Therapy’s clients. Little did I know that this would be the end of my quarterly trips to Ontario until… well we still don’t know.

As I am writing this I am not sure what the answers are. In past journal entries I’ve written about caring for self with loving kindness… I thought I had it figured out. I thought I was finding my way. I thought I had finally arrived.

But once again, life feels messy and frustrating. Despite my best efforts to move forward consistently and intentionally, I am now in a place where it feels like two steps forward, one step back on one day and then, one step forward and two steps back on the next.

The holidays often bring a series of emotions. This year may be even more intense as we navigate the transitions and adaptations involved with the pandemic. Feelings of joy, gratitude, calm, excitement, peace, sadness, grief, loss, loneliness, fear. Or any combination of these.

Regardless of whether the holidays naturally nurture your preferred state of being, or not, I invite you to think about how you would like to feel this holiday season.

Having a robust and consistent strategy to building a virtual business network has another significant upside – you will be supporting your mental health and the mental health of those you engage with. As entrepreneurs, we will continue to adapt and find creative ways to thrive, regardless of the challenges ahead.

We all have them. Those days when we don’t feel “on.” Difficulty functioning, not feeling well-rested in the mornings, going through our own journeys with mental health, feeling overwhelmed with the demands of our business and life responsibilities.

Having a robust and consistent strategy to building a virtual business network has another significant upside – you will be supporting your mental health and the mental health of those you engage with. As entrepreneurs, we will continue to adapt and find creative ways to thrive, regardless of the challenges ahead.

I am blessed to say that my childhood was filled with love. Love that I couldn’t have imagined from a beautiful family. Even with this deep love I still have memories from my childhood of navigating anxiety. As an infant and toddler everyday I coped with the emotional and physical symptoms of severe eczema, chronic sinus congestion, and asthma. There were meltdowns in Walmart where my mother would hold me as I cried in pain. Expressing that I wanted to take a knife to cut my skin off because I was in such distress. Striking myself because I felt like this inner anxiety gremlin was taking over my body, my mind, my identity. With a voice so loud that it was screaming its reality and truth into my psyche.

Welcome to Costron + Co!

As entrepreneurs, we have experienced the benefits that great support from our team and collaborators provide for tasks outside of our wheelhouse. To grow a business, it is crucial to be aware of new opportunities for synergy. We’ve all had those points at various stages of our business when we feel the weight of juggling all the ‘stuff & things,’ and we come to realize that if we want to continue to serve with joy, structural changes may be needed for a return to clarity, confidence and calm. 

Ever do something that you said – and openly told others – that you would NEVER do? 

Yep – me too. And it recently happened again. Meet Doris, The Roadtripper! This new-to-us RV motorcoach is something that I said I would never own. My spouse and I said never would we ever own an RV. We were quite proud of our judgement, with our list of things that didn’t make it right, and frankly couldn’t understand why someone would choose an RV as a method of travel. 

Putting pen to paper - or fingers to keyboard in this case – is again proving to be a challenge. At this moment I have much to say and no words to articulate my thoughts and feelings. I mentioned in my last blog that I would talk about the learning and experience of hosting the KEDCO call on Navigating Marketing & Social Caused as a Small Business Owner. I have thought a lot about the experience in the last two weeks. 

It has been difficult to write a blog this week. To be honest, I am distracted and can’t seem to get inspired to focus on a topic. That stupid voice of ‘you should sit down and write your blog’ is nattering around in my mind.

I have been working at self-care for years now. Sometimes I think I’m getting the hang of it. Other times I feel like: Hey wait a minute, I wasn’t looking for another job or list of chores!  Anybody else feeling a bit overwhelmed?