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Hello, and welcome to Women Conquer Business, I'm your host, Jen McFarland.
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And it's been a really long time.
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In fact, I'm sitting down today recording because it's been exactly one
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year since the last episode occurred.
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I interviewed two young women, brilliant young women who started a
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business called COVIDnineteen Project.
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As far as I know, it's still going on.
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They're tutoring students from around the world filling a gap that
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occurred after COVID-19 hit the world.
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And after the interview, I thought, wow, this is great.
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How am I ever going to top this?
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And one thing led to another and another and another.
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And there just weren't any other episodes.
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It just didn't happen.
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I call it COVID time.
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And when I talked to people about COVID time, they really do seem to
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understand, and that resonates with them what COVID time really means.
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It's this kind of weird paradigm this weird.
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World that we live in where everything is in so much flux that you don't really
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know what's going to happen from minute to minute, day to day, year to year.
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And how many of you out there have been experiencing this same thing?
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For me, it feels like at times time is elastic and maybe just a suggestion.
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The truth is there were, a lot of obstacles that kept
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the show from continuing.
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Yet, I still have a desire to keep it going.
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I am curious what you've been up to over this past year.
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If you'd like to email me, please email me at hello@womenconquerbiz.com and I'll
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either address it on a future episode or hit reply and talk to you about it.
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In fact, this is the.
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Second time today, I've tried to record this episode and I feel like it's
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actually a really good analogy for the past year has been like, at least for me.
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And I think it resonates a lot in the business context, even though it has
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absolutely nothing to do with business as you'll see in just a moment.
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I sat down, I recorded just.
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Hello, welcome to Women Conquer Business.
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And all of a sudden I heard this scratching sound outside my office door,
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and I thought, what are the dogs into?
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It's a natural response when you have two Boston terriers that
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are incredibly busy all the time.
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And so I groaned and stopped what I was doing and walked out into the living
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room and my dogs are staring at me and then staring at the fireplace and I was.
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What what's going on?
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It wasn't you?
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So I look in the fireplace, it has doors on it.
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It's like a 1950s fireplace with all this brick.
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And then I don't know, it's like almost like chainmail doors, and
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then over that are glass doors.
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And everything's moving around in there.
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And it turns out that there was a crow that had climbed down the chimney
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and got stuck in our fireplace.
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And.
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I called every place I could come up with to try and help us resolve this issue.
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It's strange.
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And, and honestly, most of the places were laughing at us and
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no, we can't help you with that.
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Why don't you call these guys?
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And then the next person would say, why don't you call this person?
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And the one, there was one place that said they would come out and the business name
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concerned me because I didn't want to.
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Harm the bird and it was called Squish, but we have an appointment with them
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tomorrow that we thankfully don't need.
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And I don't think they would've heard the crow either, but in calling everybody,
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we realized that nobody is really an expert on removing a live crow from
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your fireplace in your living room.
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The crow sat there for quite some time, because we didn't know what to do.
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We couldn't even see it.
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Then we got a headlamp and we got, flashlight and we
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just started investigating.
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And how many times has this kind of thing happened to you in your business?
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Something really wild happens
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and then you're just like, what am I going to do next?
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And that's exactly what this felt like.
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It felt like.
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Holy cow.
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We're just, off-roading here.
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We're just going to figure this out.
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We don't have anybody because even the people who said they would come
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out tomorrow, said we're just going to inspect and see what happens next.
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Even they weren't really guaranteeing that they would
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remove the crow from the fireplace.
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They're just going to come stare at it, which is what we had
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been doing all of this time.
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So we.
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Got a neighbor.
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We called our other friends and everyone's like, you might just have to do this.
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Like you might just have to grab a blanket and see if you can get him out.
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So we're like, okay.
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I, for one was terrified because I've seen The Birds by Albert
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Hitchcock a few too many times.
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So I was kind of like, what's going to happen now.
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So I'm standing out in the driveway, calling my friend Jeanne, who I'm
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supposed to be doing a webinar with today, which we ended up doing anyway and
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saying, I don't know if I can make it.
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And we're all wearing like racquetball goggles.
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And then our neighbor got a soccer net that like his little kids use the
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backyard and we put that in front of the fireplace just in case the bird
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got out and we're like shutting all the doors and closing all the curtains,
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because we had heard that if we made the area dark then have a door open,
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then that might help facilitate it.
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And then we come up with this plan for like, how are we
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going to help get the crow out.
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We go open the doors and the crow's like, yeah, I don't really feel like coming out.
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And how many times does something like this happen?
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Something really big happens.
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You come up with a plan and then it's yeah, no, that's
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just not going to work either.
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So the crow decided that the he or she was going to burrow underneath
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the grate inside of the fireplace.
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So that happened.
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And then we closed everything back up and thought we'll just come back to this.
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So the crow comes back out and I can see him and I go to get my neighbor
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and he's on a business meeting.
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I go to get my husband and he's on a business meeting and I'm just sitting
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there videotaping the crow and watching him inside and just hoping that he's safe,
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and also that he doesn't come out into my living room so that I can remain safe.
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And after.
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Everybody gets free of time again, then my husband and I put on our
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racquetball goggles and still couldn't get the bird to come out.
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And finally Jon said, you know what?
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I'm just going to put on these gardening gloves and I'm gonna see
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what I can do about wrapping the crow in this wool blanket and we'll carry
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him outside and see what happens.
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And.
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That's exactly what happened.
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That's exactly what he did thankfully to the bird was very calm and collected.
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And as soon as he walked him outside and we shut the front door, my husband undid
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the blanket and the bird just flew away.
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It was like so grateful that he was free from our living room.
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We were so grateful that he was free from our living room.
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Then I went and did the webinar, had some lunch and here we are now, like what.
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Five or six hours later than I had anticipated talking about why there
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hasn't been an episode in a year.
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So I think that you can see now that my year has been a lot, like what
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I suspect your year has been like.
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Can I guarantee that there will be podcast episodes every week?
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Certainly not.
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Like many of you, I'm also pivoting my business, making a lot of changes.
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I've also had a lot of life changes over the course of the last year.
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All of that, all of which is to say there's been a lot happening in my world.
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Just like if there has been in your world that has really shifted
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priorities and things like that.
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I did feel however that beings as it's been a year, I felt like I
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needed to at the very least say hello, I'm thinking about you.
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I know that many of you have been listening to this show over the past
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year, and I cannot express enough gratitude for how many people are
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still continuing to listen to the show.
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And I want you to know that I'm here and of service.
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And if you have anything that you would like to talk about in terms of business,
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in terms of digital marketing, if you have any questions, I'd be happy to start
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answering all of those questions as much as I can, as often as I can on this show.
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I also think that stories like this where, I'm sorry, I couldn't record my show.
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I had a crow in my living room.
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I think that when we acknowledge just how wild of a world we live in right
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now, not only in terms of uncertainty, which was always there before, but just
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in terms of the fact that everybody right now seems to feel like they're
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off-roading to an extent.
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There's so much unknown and new ground being broken out there.
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I think the stories like this that have nothing to do with business
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are also a really great barometer so that we can all just be in touch and
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realize that we truly are not alone.
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And when these things happen, you can view them through the lens of
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your business and kind of look at it and be like, XYZ happened in
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my business and that was really upsetting, but it was so wild and
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out there, and it's never happened before, so why would it happen again?
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And then you're more able to get out there and navigate the world and look
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at things through a different lens.
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And that's why I shared the story of why today.
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We almost didn't have a podcast again.
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But we do and we're here.
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So thank you for being here.
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Thank you for listening for the last two years.
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I apologize for being gone for exactly one year as of today.
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And I hope that you are all safe and happy and well, and if I can
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be of service again, you can email me at hello@womenconquerbiz.com.
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I'll do my best to answer on the show or reply personally, by email.
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Otherwise, I am so glad to be here so glad that you are here and are part of
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this journey and, have a wonderful day.
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Thank you for listening to it.
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This talk.
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If you'd like to learn more about me, my workshops or presentations, you can
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learn more at www.womenconquerbiz.com or follow me on LinkedIn at
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linkedin.com/in/jensmcfarland.
