In this insightful episode of the One Small Change podcast, Yvonne McCoy explores the powerful impact of small, strategic changes with guest Diane Rolston. Diane shares her journey from solo entrepreneur and overwhelmed mother to thriving business owner, all sparked by the decision to bring virtual assistants (VAs) into her workflow. She elaborates on when and how to delegate, debunks the top myths around hiring VAs, and discusses the transformative effects outsourcing can have on productivity, profits, and personal freedom. Diane offers actionable steps, practical tips, and resources to help listeners recognize when they’re VA-ready and how to maximize this game-changing support, especially for women entrepreneurs who often struggle with asking for help.

QUOTE FROM GUEST:

"You have permission to ask for help. We are not meant to be silos. Everyone has the ability to get help to scale your business, to have the financial success and the freedom you want."

CHAPTERS:

00:00 Balancing Entrepreneurship and Freedom

05:29 Business Growth Through Delegation

08:31 Streamline Tasks for Business Growth

12:55 "Delegation and Virtual Assistance Simplified"

17:17 VA Engagement Strategy: Four Clients

20:36 Virtual Assistant Backup Solutions

23:38 "Client Needs and VA Matching"

25:07 Managing Miscommunications with VAs

28:40 Maximize Productivity Through Brain Dumps

34:15 "Subscribe and Engage for Growth"

36:03 "Embrace Change, Stay Curious"

LINKS:

https://www.dianerolston.com/

The Ultimate Delegation Task List: Diane is sharing her list of 229+ tasks you can delegate right now: https://keap.page/mw315/229-tasks-you-can-delegate1.html 

5 Critical Problems to Avoid When Delegating: Avoid common pitfalls and set yourself (and your new VA!) up for success: https://keap.page/mw315/copy-of-5-problems-in-delegating.html

Welcome to the One Small Change podcast. I am so thrilled that

you decided to spend some time with us today as we embark on this journey

of exploration and transformation. I'm your host Yvonne McCoy,

and I bring almost thirty years of entrepreneurial experience

and a passion for discovering growth through the power of

seemingly small change. So I wanna make sure that,

you know, you get great value for spending time with us that's

gonna help you in that journey of exploration and inspiration. And this

week, we are talking to the amazing Diane Ralston,

and she is gonna share with us some smaller unexpected,

decision or change that sparked a transformation and

growth in her personal or professional life. Diane,

thank you for spending time with me today. Thanks for having

me. Such a joy to be here. Oh, that's great. I can't wait for

you to tell my audience what you do and

how that that small change steered you in that direction or

helped you to do it better. Well, I I look

forward to sharing more. Yes. So go for it. Tell us tell

us about yourself. Okay. Well, I, I

started my coaching practice over fourteen years ago, you know, leaving

corporate, coming into my own. And I came

from a company where I had a lot of support. I was using a lot

of my skills, which was amazing. But then going on my

own, becoming a coach, a professional speaker, author, and

running a women's community, I started to realize,

wow, I had a lot of support before.

And I was thinking like going on my own

is amazing and doing my own thing is great, But

I couldn't keep up with everything that had to be done. And

so maybe you know what it's like, you know, to have to do everything on

your own in the beginning. And I was experiencing

that. Maybe your listeners have felt that too. And I

also became a mother of two. So I had two children under

three at the same time, and I was building a business.

Yeah. So I was really overwhelmed, right, with all

I had to do and also being a mother. And I

wasn't making the type of money that I wanted to be making, even though I

was doing great work, because I just couldn't keep up with the cash flow activities,

you know, getting more leads, following up with people that I

had met Mhmm. Finishing off programs to actually

be able to launch them properly. And so I thought,

okay. I'm going to

work, work, work, work, work, work. And then I started to have the finances,

but then I didn't have the freedom. Right. But, like, how can I

have both? So I'm helping my life coaching clients and my

business clients to try to have that freedom, but why did, why couldn't I have

it? So I ended up hiring a local assistant,

like a admin assistant sort of thing.

And as a lot of entrepreneurs find in the beginning,

you're putting the money into that and then you need to have the return.

And I couldn't have enough hours with her because

the finances needed to be even higher to maintain both of us

in a career. Right. And then we started struggling with

tech. Because as you know, Yvonne, like, tech just keeps changing

all the time. You and I are using tech right now to have this amazing

conversation. And so I thought,

ugh, I need I need some more help. And so I

ended up hiring and this is, like, the big the big shift for

me. I ended up hiring someone from The Philippines. I

first hired a coach to teach me how to do that, And then I got

myself a virtual assistant or as people say, a VA. I

actually hired two in the end and I had them start

developing my systems, my processes.

And then that's when I went, ah, I now have a big girl business

because things, the foundation of my business were starting to

be in place. And then that's go oh, you ask. Go

ahead. No. I was just gonna say your story is

so amazing, and yet it's not unique, the the

bones of it. I think as we go through that entrepreneurial

journey, if we're coming out of business, we discover

that we have lots of support and suddenly now we have to wear all the

hats. Yeah. And then you always have

that time money thing that you're going after. It's like, you

know, if if I have the time, I don't have the money. And if I

have the money, I don't have the time. And, you know, in some place in

there, your family has to fit, you know, that kind of thing. And

so the thing that you're talking about is absolutely

what my audience needs to hear about.

Yeah. And, you know, as you're mentioning that, it reminded me of a couple of

pivotal moments where I just feel like I'd,

I'd hit a a bottom when

one of my, so I was running a women's community called Dynamic Women, had

eight locations, running events every month. And

one of those members said to my daughter who was about six at the time,

so do you wanna be an entrepreneur or business owner when you grow up? And

I was like, I was just gonna say yes. You know what she said?

Very strong and quick, no. And they were like,

why not? And she's like, my mom works all the time. That's what my kids

said. And I was like, ah,

like, heartbroken because

she doesn't see the flexibility that being my own boss does allow

me, the fact that I'm able to work and live in my passions.

She didn't see all of that. Right. Which which was really sad.

But in hiring the two Filipino VAs,

I was able to hit just a new level of

almost, it was almost like jet fuel for my business,

you know? Because then if you've read the e myth,

if your listeners have, the idea of we come into business and we're the

technician, but we also have to be now the

CEO and the manager. And so that's a lot of

roles And all we really want to do is our core

competencies or our zone of genius, which for me was coaching

and speaking and leading these women's events and writing books and programs.

But there I was, you know, in Disney in the bath bathroom, on

my computer, finishing off some stuff that I really should have

been passing off. And so finally I had

two people who had the tech knowledge, the

speed, and the ability to get

those things done. And so that's when I really took off. And that's when I

started to have the financial freedom and then

the time freedom. So I started to feel really

supported, really grew my business. And

definitely like one of the most important things I think people think about is I

increase my profits. Right? So

that was important. I have a lot of questions. I have a lot of

questions. One of the things that I think

is really important is I think women in particular

say, I want somebody like me, which to me is the

biggest mistake that you could make because then what you've got

is a lot of the same stuff and you've got big

holes of the same stuff. Right? And so

how does having a VA smooth that out? Also

from an economic perspective, I jokingly say if I

when I'm doing this, I'm actually paying an MBA to do what I should be

paying, you know, a file clerk to do or something like that. I mean, I'm

paying major bucks to do a job that is not a

major bucks job. Yeah. Well, that's what I found

with hiring local was that I was paying a higher fee

than I would if I if I went to a country like The Philippines.

And, before anyone comes for me, I pay them very well.

They're very happy. That's not an issue. But it's

just the way the way the different economies work. Right? And

so I knew that if I because I needed more hours, but I also

needed more knowledge and more tech experience.

And if I was gonna do that, I would need to be going up to

75 to a hundred dollars an hour where I was like, I I

just can't sustain that at forty hours a week.

Right? And so it's that knowledge of

what are the tasks that I have to do? Those high income, high

quality,

and so high income producing activities and then the high quality

tasks. And then on the flip side knowing what are those

lower and lower income producing tasks,

but what also can someone else do for you that helps

you move the financial needle of your business? And it could be

clearing things off your plate so that you can do those cash flow activities,

but it might also be that they're doing things that move things

forward. So the fact that I can now have an idea for

a program, create an outline for it, pass that off in just a

Word doc to my VA or in a voice memo, and

they create the landing page and set

up the payment system and then sync

that to my CRM with the welcome emails and then

set up all the meetings on Zoom

and then send all the reminder emails. Mhmm. And then

I give them that the actual course outline, and then they create all my

PowerPoints, and then I record them, and now they're editing and then putting

up on the system. Like, the speed to which I can work

is phenomenal. And I think that's what gets a lot of business

owners is it can feel like it takes so long to get

anything done. So I'm gonna I'm gonna

ask you a couple of things. So

this is gonna be easy for you. I'm sure. What

so when do you know that you're VA ready? That you're ready to have

a VA? And the reason I say that is it reminds me

so much of when, you know, you hire somebody, you know, when your

mother would hire somebody to clean and spend two days cleaning before

they got there. You know, I don't have two days to clean

so I can have somebody to clean. And, also, you know, that

myth of kind of,

they're not gonna be able to do it the way I do it. So let

me just tell you a little bit about my idea about it. And I believe

in delegation kind of in the reverse order because what you we're usually

taught is delegate, you know, automate, and eliminate. I believe in doing

it in reverse order, and I, you know, my sis I do

models. I like acronyms. So it's called, productivity

ahead. So the first thing is is awareness. What

situation am I in? What am I doing? What's going on in my life? What

you know, whatever. So it's like if you're in a burning fire, this is not

a time to learn how to, you know, make a campfire kind of thing. Right?

Then it's what can I put on hold? And those are usually ideas. What

then what can I eliminate? Then what can I automate? And sometimes automation

is not technical. It's just, you know, you have a system for something. And then

what you're left with is the important things in your business that

you need to delegate. And I think a delegation is training. You're

actually helping to train somebody to take stuff that is money

producing off your plate. Yeah. So the

my quest so having said that, my question is,

when should people start thinking about a VA? What do they need to do to

get ready for that? Yes. So

I have had people come to me with just a business idea.

And if they haven't had a business already, I

suggest that they work with a coach first to get the basics of

business in place. What's your vision mission? What colors are you

wanting? To show up to a VA and be like, I need a

website, but I don't know what what I'm gonna say on it. And I don't

know my colors and I don't have a logo on it. It's just, we're kind

of jumping the gun a little bit. But if you've been in business before, you

understand all of those things. And so you can jump in with a VA because

you're gonna be like, I need to research on the colors. I need a logo.

Maybe you're you're gonna already know. But I really suggest you work with a

coach. So sometimes people come to me looking for a VA and they end up

getting a VA and a coach in me in order to be

able to make the strides they need to make

without wasting time and still being able to maximize their VA's

time. Also, a lot of people come to me and they'll say, Diane,

so I'm gonna get a VA soon. I just need to get all

my systems and processes in place. And I say, hold up. No, you

don't. Or they'll come to me and they'll say, I just need to figure out

what to delegate and then I'll hire one of your VAs. And just to

kind of put put the little piece in there where I haven't said yet, I

did end up starting a virtual assistant agency programs called VA Made

Easy because too many people kept coming to me and saying, how did you hire

from The Philippines? What do you delegate? How do you delegate? How do you do

systems and processes? How do you train? How do you give feedback? How do you

communicate? How do you track the product? All these things. And I said, don't

worry about it. I'll help you. So a few things to

be thinking about is if you

have too much work, meaning too

many things to do that are outside

of your knowledge, you need a virtual assistant to take care of it

for you. If you are lucky enough to have a

lot of work coming in, but you feel like leads are slipping through your

fingers or you're kind of dropping the ball, you need a

virtual assistant. And so what I do is I take people

through a lot of different activities, really simple ones

that have really powerful results in showing them

exactly what they can delegate. A lot of times people come to me with

like the shiny object syndrome and they're like, it'd be really cool if I could

have this and this and this and this, and maybe they could do this for

me. And I say, hold up. What are

your main goals for this year? Oh, well, I wanna

write a book and I and I wanna update my website,

and I wanna bring in 10 new clients. And I'm like, great. So

let's have your VA support you in making those goals happen. Mhmm.

And sometimes it's taking stuff off their plate that they haven't had time to do.

Sometimes it's the back end setting everything up. But that's really the key

piece because if

if you think you have to wait until you can figure out all your systems

and processes, which, by the way, I teach my VAs how to make

your systems and processes for you, if you wait to figure out all the

things you can delegate, like, don't reinvent the wheel. I have lists

of tasks. I have training videos. I have checklists

and instructions. You can just copy all of mine. Right?

And being that I have in my own business

coaching, public speaking, workshops, leading communities,

events, podcast publishing, YouTube

publishing, blogs, books. I don't say

all of this to brag. I say all of this, like, tap into my

IP, my intellectual property. I share it with people.

Right? That's that's the easiest way to get ahead.

And I think I think the other the other thing that holds us back

is if I hire somebody, I'm now

responsible for them. You know? This is how much money I

have, but is that really enough? You know? Is, like, five hours a

week enough, you know, that I can I know I can sustain that?

How do you how do you balance that? So

I had a a client come. She was working in a job, and she wanted

to start her own kind of side business and move into that. And she said

to me a few months in, when I asked her the question, what would you

say to someone who's kind of on the fence and not sure if they're ready

to to start with their VA? And she said, start when you're

not ready because because the best thing

that this did for me was it lit a fire under my butt.

I knew I was responsible for someone. And so in those moments when

I'm like, I'll just watch Netflix. Oh, I'll just

scroll Facebook. She was like, I knew I couldn't. I had to do things.

And so she was able to have better business success because it

motivated her to have someone. Plus that

person there was able she'd say, I'm not sure about this. And she the

VA said, I'll research that for you. Right? So there was a lot of

time where she was able to move forward faster and then she

got even more inspired because she was like, woah, look at the results. Well, look

at my website. Look at this, look at that. That she, it was

so beneficial for her to be able to kind of start when

she did. And you can start smaller, right? You can start

smaller, but there's key. How small is small?

Well, you know, with my, with my clients, we start at ten hours a week.

Reason being VAs need steady

work. Right. Right? And so kind of of the idea of

generally our VAs have four clients at ten hours a week.

This gives them steady income. So they're focused on just the

four people. They're not looking for other work, and they're not inundated

with twelve, twenty clients trying to get their attention.

This way, they're also using the same project management tools, the

same communication tools, the same way of doing things. So

it helps them to do a better job with their clients. If you're gonna hire

a VA for a couple hours a week, you are also

competing for the attention of the VA with all of their other clients.

My feeling is when you work that ten hours a week with your client with

your VA, they get to know you. Trust me. Even if you

only think you got three hours of work every week, there are so many other

things. It's so it's so fun to be like, oh, maybe my VA could do

this. Hey, can we do something like that that these people are doing over here?

Yeah. And you're moving forward together. You get to know each

other better. You get to grow with each other. Your

income will increase as long as you

are going and doing income generating activities. This does not allow you to

go sit on your butt now, twiddle your thumbs, right? Don't organize your

closet, go get some clients. And then you can keep them and

maintain them. So a lot of my clients have said like, wow,

I've gotten more done in the past six weeks than I have in the past

six months. Or wow, just because this

one thing was cleaned up and and started to run, I got three new

clients this week. So those are kind of the type of results

people can get. But I think ten hours a week. Because you

also want to maintain and retain your VA.

Because training someone new, people

ghost you, it's not the type of experience you want. So some people have said

to me, oh, Diana, I've had a terrible experience. But

it it was maybe because you were only throwing them a couple hours of work,

and then they got another client that was bigger. Right? And so

there's a chance you can lose a VA. So we like to start with 10,

and then as your business grows, if you jump to twenty, thirty, whatever it

may be, but ten's a great place to start. My two VAs are at

twenty hours each for my business. So the other

thing I mean, you know, one of the questions that I think about a

lot when I'm looking at, you know, services, it

is I like to know that there are other

people. You know? So, like, when when when my kids were in day care,

I had a wonderful lady, you know, who was not, like, at a day care

center. Mhmm. But, you know, I would show up and she goes, I'm

sick today. Sorry. I'm like, what?

I still have to go to work. I still have this kid. This doesn't work

for me. And so one of the things that I like that you're saying

is, you know, you've got you know, when you've got ten

hours, right, you've got a fair amount, you you know, some flexibility.

But also because you're the conduit,

I can you know, as a client, I can come to you and say, I'm

not sure this is working for me. Help me. Is it me? Is it the

VA? Is it not a good match? But, you know, if that

VA were to get sick or something should happen, I'm not

gonna be left high and dry with somebody that doesn't know the kind of systems

and stuff that I have. So talk about that a little bit if you would.

Yeah. You've you've raised two really good points.

You know, the the one side about someone your VA getting

sick or something happening. You know, we had someone had to one of our VAs

had to go in for emergency surgery, and she didn't see it coming.

And all of a sudden she's not able to work for three months three weeks.

And so what we are able to do because I have a team of virtual

assistants Mhmm. And I know the client and I

have we have tracked what the VA has been working on and

where they're at in all their projects because they update everything. We

were easily able to say, based on the goals you have right

now, client a, here's another fit

for you to pass the time, you know, while she's recovering.

So you have that ability to tap into our our group of

of VAs if, yeah, if your VA is sick or whatever it may

be. The other thing is maybe something happens and

you need a specialist. So we hire general virtual assistants

because we find entrepreneurs need a wide variety of tasks.

Social media content creation, video audio editing, graphic

design, PowerPoint creation, and it the list goes

like on and on and on. But the sometimes a

specialist item comes up and one of our V's maybe has that

experience. So one of our, one of our clients, she's

like, I'm supposed to be on a on a summit today and I have

a lead magnet, But for some reason,

my my sign up page is is not working. It's broken.

And she's like, I go on live in two hours, and I don't think my

VA knows how to do this. So I went into my group of VAs,

and I said what was happening in the platform, and someone said, sounds

like there's some back end coding that needs to be done. I think I can

do it. Went in about fifteen minutes later. It's all fixed. It's

up and running. And so that's also the joy of

it, is the ability to tap in to have someone else do

something that's very specific and necessary. Or even,

we're starting on this platform. Do you have anyone that knows that

platform? Oh, yeah. We do. Or, we had someone

wanting to publish a book, so I I had their VA sit with

my VA. We first created a few, like, training videos for them,

but they sat together so my VA could walk her

through to make sure that everything was happening properly

before she hit pay, publish up on Amazon.

Right? So tapping into that is amazing. The other thing

that, that you said that I think sounds wonderful

is that if I were to get a VA and

my business grows, and then I need another VA,

they could be simpatico. They would be familiar with the

same kinds of systems and formats and stuff. And so it would be

a seamless way to grow as opposed to taking somebody who

has this school of thought and works this way and trying to put somebody

that's got this and works a different way. Yeah. So

with a lot of our clients, when they come on board, we talk about

where their business is going, what their needs are, because even

something as simple as social media content creation,

scheduling, and management is a whole system, which

could be your ten hours. Right? So they'll talk through things with me, and I'll

say, yeah. Sounds like ten hours is good good place for you. Or sounds like

in a couple months, you're gonna need twenty. And so what we make sure first

is, does that VA we're matching you with have availability to grow

with you? Or are you maybe thinking about

having two different VA? So we have a few that have a two different, we

have some that have twenty or thirty hours with with one specific

VA. You'd also brought up a point

around kind of like I'm there, almost like a

mediator between. And it's funny because when we started this, I

thought, oh, I'm gonna have to really help the virtual

assistant. Right? I'm gonna make sure that they're they're doing their

job right and that they have the training they need. But actually,

it was really funny because I was noticing the clients needed a lot of

support. So why why isn't my VA doing

this task right? And I said, do I have permission to go and look at

your instructions? Oh, yes. Go ahead. And I'd go in and I'd go,

I'm a native English speaker. I don't understand what you're asking.

Or you're so high level, there's there's no

detail in there. So being able for me to support

the the client. And then sometimes there's miscommunication.

So maybe the VA was supposed to be on on the call at a certain

time, but the invite didn't go through and, you know,

something happened. And then the the client's like, where's my VA? And the

VA is like, I never got I never got an invite. And then I can

be there to kind of support both sides. Because really at the end of the

day, as an entrepreneur, you want to have a

good employee or a good VA that works with you and be able

to have a nice relationship that lasts a

long time. Because it saves you a ton of money when you can just work

with one person, have them grow with you. I have to tell you

that delegation I I jokingly did a post that

said, using chat GPT made me a better

delegator because I put things in the

chat GPT and it spits stuff out. And I'm like, why is it

saying this? I thought I was really clear. Do you know? And I've had

the same experience with clients where we're working on delegation.

I know what it is that they're trying to do. They tell me and I'm

like, I didn't get it. I mean, I know what you're telling me and I

didn't get it. So this no wonder you're not getting the results from your

team that that you think you should be getting. So Yeah. Yeah.

Before we run out of time Yeah. I have two things that I wanna make

sure that we cover. Is there anything else that you wanna tell us that

I didn't ask you about or or didn't come out? Because I wanna make sure

we get the best of you. Yeah. Well, I'd love to

go through some myths that people are

believing. Absolutely. That, and

then I obviously, I wanna share a gift with your

with your people. Yes. So, yeah, those are a couple

things that that Let's do it then. Okay. So

here are the myths that I've been seeing. There's there's just three of

them. There are more, but here are the kind of the three main ones.

So we, we touched on a little bit, but it's expensive to

have a VA. So the truth is around

this, that when you have a VA from The Philippines, you're looking at,

you know, half of what you would pay for someone in Canada, The US or

another country. Also, when you can delegate,

you don't have to hire an expensive employee. You don't have to rent an

office. You don't have to provide computers and all these

sort of things. Really the future of business is leveraging

the skills of virtual assistants. And then

you don't even have to overpay by hiring someone local. So

$30.50 an hour, maybe. And the thing is,

well, people say, why The Philippines? And I've picked one country. I'm like, there's

lots of countries with great people that work. But The

Philippines is great because they're just as competent as

someone local. They're probably more excited, more passionate,

maybe more thankful for the money is what I found.

And it can be, you can get more

hours for the same amount of money. Right? So

you can, rather than a couple hours here, you could get your, your

ten hours. So that's the first one. It's

expensive. And, and I ask people too

sometimes, how expensive is it for you to not have the

time to follow-up with your leads? What is the

revenue that you're letting slip through your fingers because you just don't

have the time? And I get it. Totally get it. The second

is they'll say, I don't have enough time. I don't have enough to

delegate. The truth is you actually have lots. And I'm gonna give I'm

gonna give your people a few activities to do. I've mentioned a few things already,

but if you take maybe ten minutes, put a timer on a clock,

write all the things down that you haven't

gotten to. Do a brain dump. Okay? So that's the first activity. You're

gonna see opportunity for things that maybe you're not getting to because you don't know

how to do it, you don't wanna do it, or it just takes a lot

of time. Right? So you're gonna pass those those off.

Also, another activity over the week, so maybe over the next week,

write down everything that you're doing.

Write down everything that you're doing. And then you can look at it and say,

I can delegate that. I wanna delegate that. I have to do a few more

things to be able to delegate that. And then the last thing is I do

have a list of 229 tasks, and this is

not exhaustive because I put it together about a year ago. But

I don't wanna go higher because I think it freaks people out. But

this is how you're gonna be able to get those ten hours a week back.

Right? There's full systems that you can delegate. Social

media management, content, social media content

creation, content repurposing. Right?

So taking a video, putting it up on YouTube, pulling

the audio, putting it on your podcast, pulling the words in a

transcript, making a blog, then promoting that on your

social, then putting that into your newsletter. I've got that

as a full system. You don't even have to write that up

yourself. So there's so many things that you can do, and that task

of 229, that list of

229 tasks, I'm actually gonna share with with

your audience, just to kind of get the balls rolling

about what's going on. Yeah. Yeah. And the the

last thing is people will say I'm just too busy to train a

VA. And it you're probably busy. Yes. But you don't

have to go through a full training. So the kind of idea of corporate, you

go in for a couple of weeks, then you get trained, and then you're working.

No. We're gonna train very simply by it's a one,

two, three method that I teach all my VAs and my clients. So first,

you're gonna have you're gonna talk through on video, just Zoom

screen record, Loom screen record, talk through the steps

that you do and the reasons behind it. Then share that with

your VA and have them document the process. So all

my VAs have been trained in how to properly document processes

to create your SOPs, your standard operating procedures for you.

And then they do the task. Right? So they've

trained themselves. They've created your SOP, and now they're doing the task. And what did

you do? Recorded a five minute video. Yeah. That's

really the way to go. Or you can just use my systems and

processes. Super simple. But you

have time because you're not doing a full training. And it's always

kind of the three to one. If you can train this one thing, they should

be able to go and do three times the amount of work on that. Yeah.

Yeah. That's what I call the rule of three. When you put something in

it, how can you use it three times? Right?

So so alright. So we could keep talking about this because this

is this is a fantastic thing. It's something that that if

you're growing your business, that you need to consider.

And so, you're gonna give us a gift that

practical steps that we can go through to to see,

that we may be VA ready before we think and that it's an affordable

option. And those are very practical steps, not only not

only in that process, but also probably to make us

realize some of the tasks that we have that we don't even realize we're

doing, which is, you know, like, is is a big one. So that is a

huge, huge gift.

The other thing is because we are running out of time,

I would love, you know, I would love us to keep at this and dig

deeper. I have my my question, my my surprise question,

and that was when was the last time you did something new for the first

time? Oh, the last time I did something oh, in

New Zealand a few weeks ago, I did zorbing.

So you get in I know. Google it, z

o b z o r b, zorb, zorbing in New Zealand

in Rotorua, and you get in a really big plastic

ball, and they put water in it, and then

they push you down a hill. With water in it?

So the water in it stops you from flipping head over heels

in the ball. Okay. Kinda friction wise just

to kinda sit in the water and, and chill as you're well, you

don't really chill. It's pretty wild. But, yeah, sorbing

was was the last thing I did that was brand new to me

or sand dune boarding. There there are

two things where I think this would have been better in my twenties than my

forties, but but I did them and they were exciting. And I don't

know if I'll ever do them again, though. Oh, well, I've seen people in the

balls, but the idea that you would say upright because there's water in

it is a lot more appealing to me. But that is fascinating. I'm always

surprised with what people say because, you know, amazing things

come out. Alright. Well, we have to we have to bring this to a close.

So I have to do the commercial part, and then I'm gonna get some words

of wisdom from you. And and people are gonna wanna

download your gift. I can't believe how fantastic it is.

So of course I need you to subscribe and share and engage with the

podcast on social media. One of the reasons that I do this

is because I want to give back to the community and we can't be

everywhere at once and find everything. And this is a way for me to

share information and share other experts with you. So this becomes

a vibrant community and it helps to fuel your crest quest

for growth and impact. So I hope you will continue to join me on the

One Small Change so that we can, you you know, really

make monumental shifts with just the smallest,

change in what we're doing. And if you haven't listened to the first episode, you

should do that. And I've got a couple on another episode up that that I'm

gonna be doing with just me in it because I like to talk, that

that's up there on and I'm calling it the quarterly clarity

check. And so you might wanna see that. So Diane, what are

your last words of wisdom? Last words of wisdom. You've talked

about my one gift. There's another gift, the five critical problems to avoid

when delegating. Make sure you grab that as

well. But the final thing is just, like, you have

permission to ask for help. And I'm I'm speaking even

stronger to my my women out there. You have permission

to ask for help. We are not meant to be silos. We are not meant

to be lone wolves. Everyone has the

ability to get help to hire, get

help to get your work done, get help to scale your business, get help to

have the financial success you want and

the freedom that you want in your business. So get some

help to make really the business that you want come

true. And life. It makes you stronger, not weaker.

Exactly. It's smart. Absolutely. I agree

with you. Okay, guys, We need to bring this to a close.

And like I always say, change may

be simple, but it's not always easy. And it requires courage and

resilience. And most of all, it requires the willingness

to step outside your comfort zone and do something different. So hopefully

you'll continue to join me for the one small change.

And until next time, stay curious. Thank you so much,

Diane. Thanks, Yvonne.