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Kathi Burns  0:04  
Hi there, I'm board certified professional organizer Kathi Burns. I'm really glad you're here. This podcast is designed for busy entrepreneurs just like you who want to take better control of your business and move forward with less stress and more success. If this is your first time listening, then thanks for coming. The Organized Energized podcast is produced for your enjoyment and show notes are found at ThePodcast@OrganizedandEnergized.com. Come back often and feel free to add this podcast to your favorite RSS feed or iTunes. You can also follow me on Twitter at organizing energy and Facebook. All links are in the show notes. Now let's get into the show. Hi, everyone, this is Kathi and I'm here with Lisa S. Griffith. Lisa is a productivity coach, Certified Professional Organizer and speaker who draws from her 30 year career as a teacher, director and administrator of Performing Arts, girl after my heart. In 2008 she pivoted and we're going to talk about during the podcast, as entrepreneurs, we all pivot in some way. But Lisa helps now individual clients improve their productivity with her methods. And we're gonna learn a little bit more. And Lisa, I really appreciate you being on the show today.

Lisa Griffith  1:21  
Well, it's my pleasure, Kathi, thank you for having me.

Kathi Burns  1:23  
Yeah, absolutely. So, tell me you started your business. What was it in 2008?

Lisa Griffith  1:30  
Yes, that's correct.

Kathi Burns  1:31  
Okay. And I love that you have an arts background, because I'm also an artistic, creative entrepreneur. So tell me how you got into professional organizing. How did that leap happen for you?

Lisa Griffith  1:43  
Well, it was a kind of a magic question that somebody answered. Somebody asked me once I, I've been a music teacher for a very long time a school music teacher, a church musician, a performing arts director. I was just on the other side of 50, my youngest child was looking to go away to college in the next year. And I was burned out. And I loved teaching. I loved it. I loved the music world. But I was tired to try to make a living out of it. And I was really burned out. And I was discussing this with a friend of mine, who does some career counseling for midlife women, that was kind of her niche. And so we chatted for several sessions back and forth. She put me through, you know, the the whole occupational questionnaire trading thing. And the final question that she asked me was kind of the lightbulb moment, she said to me, if you had a free afternoon, and you had nothing else to do, you had no obligations, you had no place to be nothing on your list, what would you do? And I said, Well, this sounds kind of nutty, but I would probably clean out a closet or reorganize a file drawer, or reorganize my kitchen, kitchen cabinet or something like that. Because I found in an interim between a couple of jobs a few years back, I'd had a couple of months off, which I'd never had, since I was 16, I think. And I went from my house, top to bottom, from the attic to the basement, every drawer every closet, you know, and it was so rewarding. And it was and I had helped. I was the teacher that other teachers would come to and say, your classroom is so organized, you know, as I was I was a middle school music teacher, upper and middle school. But with middle school, there's a lot of stuff. And I had to keep it organized. I had 150 some students, and I had to stay on top of things. How do you do it? And she looked at me and said, Have you ever considered becoming a professional organizer?

Kathi Burns  3:47  
Did you know what that was at the time?

Lisa Griffith  3:50  
I said I have I don't even know what that is, is what is that? And she said, Oh, you need to find out about NAPO. And that's when I went online and I Googled NAPO and professional organizing. And I said oh my god, there's other people out there, just like me, and they get paid to do what I love to do. So that was the turning point for me. And I was still teaching I taught part time and I worked on my business for the first year and a half. On my one I was teaching four days a week I had a day off. I had weekends, I had evenings, my kids were of course older. So I didn't have as much mom's stuff to do. And that was kind of the beginning of me just looking at my life in a different way and saying, You know what? I have other skills that I can use. I don't have to necessarily be doing what I went to college for and got all those degrees in, you know, had all that I have other skills and through NAPO especially, you know, I took a lot of classes I became certified. I practiced on several very high end friends. You know, that was almost 14 years ago. When I think about it, and I was starting my business in 2008, and I started my business, I was going to quit my teaching job. And my husband looked at me and said, you realize it's like the height of a recession, you're going to give up a steady paycheck and benefits and all that to start a business now. And I said, Well, you know, if you're on board with me, let's let me try it. And he said, Okay. And that was kind of that was kind of the story. You know, that's how I ended up doing what I'm doing for the most part.

Kathi Burns  5:30  
That's really a great story. And aren't we blessed to have husbands to support us? When I got home and said, Honey, I'm going to be a professional organizer and image consultant. He's like, what? Okay, okay, I'll support you on that. You know, so thank goodness, we have keepers right in our life.

Lisa Griffith  5:48  
Yeah, so my biggest cheerleader.

Kathi Burns  5:51  
Yeah, I mean, we need it's important. So I want to go back to you said that you were working full, pretty much full time, four days a week, and you were launching your business on the side? What were the kind of the steps that you did? Because I know there's gonna be a lot of people out there listening to this podcast that are thinking about making the jump. What did you do to start launching before you were really ready to quit your your real job?

Lisa Griffith  6:18  
Well, I would emphasize to anyone who's starting a new business like this, and I didn't want to necessarily get an investor, I didn't want to borrow any money. I wanted to be able to, you know, go into this somewhat debt free. So that's why I kept my teaching job. And I'm the first thing I did was I did a lot of research, I went online, I took a couple of courses. I talked to friends about it. I volunteered, I said, Look, I'm thinking about doing this, you know, you've often mentioned that you really like how my house or my my office is organized? Would you like some help? And nobody ever says no, right? Everybody? Oh, yeah. And I will say this, you know, it's funny when you, when you go into organizing as a profession, it's very, very different than organizing yourself. Because you really have to put yourself in somebody else's shoes. And you really have to suspend your expectations and do things that work for them. Because you know, it's easy with yourself, you just say, well, I want to do it this way, and you do it. So it's so my, I think my teaching skills really was something that I could use a lot when I work with my clients, but it was kind of a wake up call that you know, not everybody looks at things the way you do. So it was a very eye opening thing. I had to really practice being non non judgmental. Now I was an opinionated person, and I had to learn to be a little more accepting of a different way to do things when it's part of a teaching career too. But man, you know, it makes you look at things a different way.

Kathi Burns  8:11  
Yeah, and I think for those who are ready to jump and maybe switch something and want to go part time into their new profession, I think a good takeaway is to research and also to shadow, you know, I shadowed some organizers just to see what they were doing. And if I thought it was going to be fun. And so shadow, whatever profession you want to get into somebody who's doing it already to figure out if you want to make the jump.

Lisa Griffith  8:39  
I did a couple of those things, too. That's why joining like local New England chapter was so helpful for me, because it gave me a local cohort of people that I could say, oh, you know, you're looking for help. I'm cheap. Yeah, no, but it was you know, it was it was something I could fit in while I was still teaching, a lot of that research. A lot of talking to people a lot of talking to organizers already in the profession. I think that made a big difference. I didn't spend I didn't put a website up right away. You know, I had some business cards printed up I decided on a business name but that was just really just the very beginning for about the first year.

Kathi Burns  9:19  
Yeah, I agree. There's there's no reason to go into debt Full Tilt. But you when you start a business, I started mine on $49 You know, $49 pack of business cards and flyers and yeah, you don't have to go crazy is it as if your feet into your new profession for sure.

Lisa Griffith  9:35  
Yeah. Like, you don't have to have everything in place perfectly.

Kathi Burns  9:40  
Well in there, there is no perfect anyhow, as we know, organizing clients and organizing our lives. There's one of my mantras for years. Well, when I was writing my first book was on Perfection is overrated and simply not worth it.

Lisa Griffith  9:55  
Yeah, nothing's perfect.

Kathi Burns  9:57  
Yeah, for sure. So as as an entrepreneur, what's the best piece of advice that you would give people who are who are looking to create more freedom but are feeling really feeling bogged down with their with their career, maybe they've already launched their as an entrepreneur, and now they're just feeling burnout and fried. What advice would you give them?

Lisa Griffith  10:19  
So I think the best advice is what I gave myself and took me a little while to get there is to hire the experts, hire an expert, don't try to do it all yourself. First of all, you're not going to be as good as the expert in a lot of things, you're going to spin your wheels, you're going to waste a lot of time that you could be using, working either in your business or doing things that you enjoy creatively. So my, I had two really great things that took me a while to get there. I hired someone to not just create my website, but to maintain it. And when I have to make changes, I don't have to spend an hour and a half trying to figure out what to do on WordPress, because number one, I'm not good at it. And number two, I hate it. I have I have a company with a team that when I send an email, I can say, all right, I'm not gonna spend an hour and a half on this, I'm gonna pay you to do it instead. And I'm gonna write a blog or write another chapter in this book I'm working on rather than spin my wheels. Yeah, the best decision I ever, ever, ever made. And I wish I'd done it right away, was to hire a business coach. Ah, okay. I have had two fantastic business coaches over my career. And I didn't work with the first one until I'd been in business a couple of years, and I was ready to throw in the towel. I'd had enough. I was tired of working in dirty basements, and garages and and it just wasn't my thing. And she was fantastic. And she said, Well, what do you really love to do when you get up in the morning? And you look forward to your clients that day. What are the ones you're excited about? And I said, Whoa, you know, I love helping business people in their home office and in their business office. And I'm, I'm a little weird. I don't mind sorting paper, I'm good at it, you know, and dealing with email and digital files. And she said, so why don't you just do that? And it was just like, this light bulb went off thing I see. I can just do that. And she said, Yes, it is your business, you get to decide. And no one had ever really said that to me before. And it was a real eye opening moment for me. So I would say if you can, if you if you have a little bit of money, don't spend it on marketing materials and stuff like that right away, spend it on a good business coach, or go to score and get a mentor through score, which is free mentoree. Hey, get some advice at first, I'd never run I'd never started a business. I'd never worked for myself. And I'd always worked for somebody else had gotten a paycheck. So there was a lot to learn.

Kathi Burns  13:09  
Yeah, yeah. That's great. What one lesson do you think that your business is taught you? I mean, besides, I love the fact we all need coaches, for sure. But if you had a big life lesson, and it from jumping from your artistic career over to being an organizer, which is also a very artistic career, what would be the lesson that you've learned? Do you think for yourself?

Lisa Griffith  13:30  
So I had to think hard about that question. And I think the biggest lesson I've learned, and I think it's a combination of running my business, but also getting to a certain point in my life. Stop worrying so much about what everybody thinks about you. That's the biggest lesson I've learned. Stop worrying about everybody what everybody's thinking about you. Um, I've been a big people pleaser in the past. I am what Gretchen Rubin would call a Gretchen is a Gretchen Rubin who wrote the four the four tendencies. Yeah, yeah. And obliger. Okay. And I was always worried about, oh, I said the wrong thing. And I would do over it for days, or Well, I don't like the way I looked in that picture. I'll never wear that again. And I would do over what I said and how I looked at what people were thinking. And I learned that unless I had something said something really egregious and hurtful, which I wouldn't ever do on purpose. And I go back to I would apologize, but I would go back to people later and say, Oh, I said, this, I'm so sorry. And they would look at me like you're like I don't even remember that. You know, and I've been stewing over it for weeks. So I think the best advice because when you run your own business, you put yourself out there and I did this as a performer but even more so as a business person. You put yourself out there, and you just have to stop worrying so much about it what everybody's thinking about you because they're probably not, you know, they're thinking about themselves.

Kathi Burns  15:06  
Probably not thinking about you at all. And you're, you're thinking about you all the time. It's like, Oh, okay. Yeah, that is really, really good. Because you know what, you can't help what other people think about you anyhow, they're gonna think about what you what you from their lens, and their lens is always going to be different. So that's a really good lesson. Okay. So what is the biggest organizing obstacle that you've had to face in your business?

Lisa Griffith  15:34  
Well, you know, aside from having to kick it all off and start from scratch and not know nothing about running no business, right? Yeah. Why did I take a lot of classes, a lot of free webinars out there. But I think the hardest thing I've ever been through was the pandemic. I'll be honest with you. And I know I'm not alone. And most people are going oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I will tell you this, I rebranded my business, I spent a lot of time and not an insignificant amount of money. In 2019, working on rebranding to really narrow my niche down to that productivity coaching business organizing thing. I published a book, I had a publisher, actually hire me to write a productivity planner that came out at the end of 2019. Finally yay, this big luanch on January 1st 2020. And two months later, you know, three months later, the world shut my business, you know, I was oh, I was plugging away. And I was doing a lot of marketing. And it literally, as we all know, many of us were affected by this. Boom, it just died.  And like I said to you before we talked about, I made the switch, obviously to do some virtual coaching over the years. But now I had to switch completely. And I had a lot of in person clients who really didn't want to do it. And they just said, you know, what, you know, call me when this is over kind of thing. Yeah. And I found myself floundering big time. I had always been a scheduled person, you know, you plan your day, you go out the door, you go see this client, you maybe you see another client, you have this speaking gig, everything. And I managed to run my business in very specific prescribed times, you know, Friday afternoon was for writing a blog, that kind of thing. And it was very laid out. And when all of that disappeared, my structure disappeared. And I, you know, you know, the first month or so sure. I had a couple of organizing things to do around my house, a few projects here and there. Oh, sure. I'm gonna write that other book, I always thought I was going to I'm going to do, I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything. I laid around, feeling sorry for myself, watched an awful lot of TV, you know, scrolled around on social media. And I was getting nowhere. And it took took me several months to realize I had, I had actually had one of the few clients I had, that I was coaching virtually on time management, and productivity coaching. And I finished my session with her. And I thought to myself, you big, fat hypocrite. You are telling these people to do something that you are not doing? You are not doing what you're telling people to do. You're Yeah, I was feeling realized, again, it was another lightbulb moment that I was not till I hit by my advice to people is to really, if you're struggling with time, and you're struggling with being overwhelmed, to really be structured about how you plan your time, at least at the beginning, I wasn't doing that at all. I was just setting the date days kind of flow by day would flow into the next. And I would go to bed and think so what did I do today? Nothing. You know, I cooked dinner for like the 18th day in a row. No, no, I hate to cook. So that wasn't really a big fun for me. I made myself do what I tell people to do. I make myself follow my own advice. I sat down with a planner, and I use 11th circuit planner which I love. And I literally wrote down pen. You can do this obviously digitally, but I'm a paper person. And I sat down with pen and paper and calendar and to do list and made myself structure my days in writing. And then I make myself acknowledge that. I guess I'm an obliger and I will show up as someone else's expecting me. But that's not what I can do. That's not what happens right now. I have to be self motivated. So I had to, you know, it was kind of a wake up call about taking responsibility for my own time and practicing what I preached. So I would say that that, you know, having the bottom fall out was probably one of the best things that that could have happened because it made me wake up a little bit.

Kathi Burns  20:19  
Yeah in coming from an environment where your schedule is all well, first, first of all, you came from school and classes and bells and beings and yes, minutes of your day, right, then going into entrepreneurialship. And then yeah, having clients, I've got to be there at 10. I've got to be there at one, I've got a speaking gig. Yeah. And then that all goes away. So, yeah. So we keep what we most need to learn. And as a as a yes, organizer? No, we all we all need time management, everybody needs time management, we all needed to know what we did at the end of the day.

Lisa Griffith  20:56  
Well, you know, it's funny, I was saying to my client, just, you know, at the end of the day, just write one thing down and put it on a sticky note on your laptop to say, I did this today. And I was finding, I had nothing to write nothing. And I thought, okay, you know, Lisa, you follow your own advice.

Kathi Burns  21:16  
And then take it a step further and write on this what am I gonna do tomorrow when I wake up? That's always helpful.

Lisa Griffith  21:22  
Exactly, you know, I am gonna make myself get out of bed and go outside, even if it's just to walk around the building for 10 minutes. You know, it's that kind of little small. Do one thing kind of thing that I think it motivation follows action, I think, because I think if you wait to get motivated. I mean, if I waited to get motivated to go exercise, it would never happen. I just have to do it, you know?

Kathi Burns  21:49  
Yeah, exactly. Well, that leads me to another point of what you do whenever you feel overwhelmed, or whenever you feel lack of energy, because this is organizing energize the podcast, right. So you're feeling depleted? What do you do to revive yourself?

Lisa Griffith  22:05  
Okay, so taking honestly getting outside getting outside, and I am my husband would probably would laugh and fall off the chair. If you heard me say that. Because I'm not an outdoors girl. Okay. We joke that our wedding vows said, love, honor and never camp. Because yeah, you could go sleep on the ground and attend. I'll be at the Holiday Inn down the road kind of thing. Oh, yeah. Never. Oh, yeah. So not even forget it. You know, no tents, we're not dealing with tents. So I have found that what I'm really feeling down or stressed out or anxious anxiety. I mean, I know we've all had a lot of anxiety last couple years. If I if I can, if I'm in a situation where I can I throw on and I live in New England. It's cold baby, it's cold. And I bought my first down jacket, at the in the middle of the pandemic because I thought, You know what, I gotta go outside. I gotta go outside. I throw my coat on, I throw my boots on. And I just, I put on a podcast, I discovered podcast story. I know, I'm like 10 years late from everybody else. But I discovered podcasts and I strap on my my air pods. And even if it was just 15 minutes, it just made such a difference. So I think that's one of the biggest recommendations I can make to anybody. You don't have to go work out on the peloton, you know, an hour long, sweat induced thing, you just have to go out and breathe a little more deeply move your body a little bit. That's kind of a anyway.

Kathi Burns  23:42  
I think that's great advice and getting out and just having the sun hit your face. And even you the frigid cold air is gonna wake you up and revitalize you anyhow. But, yeah, I think just being and we're all doing this during COVID. We're all like staying inside and hovering down and getting outside is fantastic advice.

Lisa Griffith  24:04  
I know it's basic and simple. But it really made a difference in my brain. It just made such a difference. Now, I have done some virtual workouts with some things and it just doesn't have the same for me it doesn't have the same effect, you know?

Kathi Burns  24:20  
Absolutely. I can't wait for that. It just doesn't work for me. You know, I can't wait to I can go do Pilates in an actual Pilates studio without wearing a mask because I'm not going to do it. Well, I have to wear a mask.

Lisa Griffith  24:32  
Exactly.

Kathi Burns  24:34  
I was really loving that for a while man.

Lisa Griffith  24:37  
I know I did plays for a very long time and it came from a job. I was hired to help organize a Pilates studio, the business end of things in the stock room. And they said, well, we can't really afford your top rate but we'll give you free classes and this rate and I hemmed in hard but I really liked them. So I said all right, I'll do it two female owners. Very, very lovely folks. And I started Pilates for the first time at like age 55/56. And I loved it, it was harder than anything I've ever done in my life. I'm telling you, I was a lacrosse player in college, but Pilates was 10 times harder than any of that. But I did it for years and years and during the we moved and then the pandemic hit. And so I've been dislocated from my studio. So I haven't found the right place to go yet. But, um, you know, I love it. It's a great workout.

Kathi Burns  25:37  
It is it's not for wimps, and I really miss and it's just not the same donated at home without the reformer. You know, I like the reformer.

Lisa Griffith  25:45  
I love that reformer thing I know. That sounds like the Spanish Inquisition.

Kathi Burns  25:53  
I know. It's a very strange word isn't there reforming our booties for some. It's funny. Okay, so what is your anything that I should have asked you, Lisa, that I did not? Anything we missed here?

Lisa Griffith  26:12  
So yes, um, there was a question that changed my life, which was what would you do if you had a free afternoon and nothing else to do? And the question is, what would I do now, 14 years later, if I had a free afternoon, and nothing to do. And let me tell you this. And this is, I think, a direct result of the pandemic, but also getting to a certain point in my life, I would make a connection with someone I care about, I would pick up the phone or send a text and say, Let's go meet for coffee, my family, my kids, my good friends, or even my sister, or a couple of really lovely friends who live far away, I pick up the phone and say, let's set up a zoom call. It's set up a FaceTime call. I haven't seen your face in three months. Let's talk. And I think if when I have free time now that I don't have anything else going on, that's what I would do. I don't need to do the organizing thing anymore. It's all done.

Kathi Burns  27:20  
You are organized.

Lisa Griffith  27:22  
Well, what else are we supposed to do? Right?

Kathi Burns  27:25  
Yeah, exactly. It's like, okay, let's let's do the pantry. I, you know, I did the spices did the big spice rack, you know, there's always,

Lisa Griffith  27:34  
There's always a little thing to do. But at this point, I want to be with people, I want to be with people. And I want to spend time with the people I care about. So that's what I would do.

Kathi Burns  27:43  
Yeah, I agree. And we all should connect. I want to go back around just to the top of the hour where you were talking about. But so for people who are looking to jump, I think your business coach has said what would you do if you had free time, it goes back around to what is your what's your gift, because what I think our passion is, is often the gift that we can give back. So for those of you who are looking to switch careers, take that take that nugget that Lisa said from her coach, you know, if you had a free afternoon, what would you do? And that's going to give you your something that you can get really enthused about, right? Because if you could do anything in the world, what would it be? And what I love about that is typically, that is also the gift that we can give back. And I know I said that a couple times. I really want to emphasize that because there's a lot of people that are jumping, you know, there are a lot of women that are gonna be jumping into a new career. Just think about what do you love to do? And I guess whatever you love to do is what you can give back to the world. So yeah, yeah. So speaking of gifts, do you? What were you gonna say? Sorry,

Lisa Griffith  28:53  
I was gonna you were to ask me if I had something to offer to folks I do. Um, I from my own experiences of working from home having to be stuck and work from home all the time. Now, some people before the pandemic did this all the time. So this won't be news to some folks. But for a lot of us it was new or a hybrid situation. So I put together a tip sheet and it's really more than just a tip sheet. It's a couple pages long of my five best tips for working productively from home, five productivity tips for working from home. And they were all things that came from my experience. What I found helped me I did talk about it with some clients and so what kind of things worked for you so there is kind of a mind meld in there of my experience and some of my clients experiences about what they felt was most most helpful for them to be productive when they're working from home. So that that is there for anyone who wants it.

Kathi Burns  29:56  
Yeah, just go down below and download download your link and get the gift that Lisa has to offer. We all need that as we're working from home and things that come from our own experience is a really great thing to give back. We have the challenges, even as professional organizers, everybody else does to actually any challenge that you have in your life, someone else is experiencing the same thing. So go ahead and grab that download, and I wish you much success. With your business from one well, one organizer to another. I really, really appreciate you being on and thank you so much. Lisa has been great.

Lisa Griffith  30:36  
Thank you. It's been my pleasure.

Kathi Burns  30:40  
I'll see you guys in the next week's podcast.

Hey, thanks for listening to this podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode. And if you want to hear more, feel free to subscribe on the platform of your choice. Also, if you feel so inclined, I would truly appreciate a good rating from you, to me have a stellar day.