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Welcome to the Build Your Coaching Business Around the 9 to 5 podcast. I'm your coach, Pamela Pritchard, and I help you go from employee to business owner. Whether you're creating your first client or learning how to create clients on repeat whilst holding down your day job, I'll help you make your business dreams a reality. Let's begin. Hello, welcome back to the podcast. So today we're going to speak about building your business during work hours. So this is for my coaches who are in a 9 to 5. Now, this has come up because it has come up a couple of times with some of my clients recently. And historically, it's often something that will come up at least once in the coaching container.
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When my clients come to me because they have a 9 to 5 and they work with me to help them maintain that momentum, implement a strategy, really upgrade their mindset so that they can build their business around the 9 to 5, generally with the view to take their business to full-time and ultimately replace their corporate salary and ultimately become a full-time life coach, even if you have no plans of working full-time when you are a life coach. So it's a catch, a catch, a catch-all type phrase when I say going into full-time. The truth is, I don't even work full-time. But it doesn't mean I don't work hard in my business, which is a very different discussion. So maybe you can relate to this.
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Let me tell you about what my day would often look like back when I was in corporate. So I have a couple of like interesting points of reference for you because I was building my business around the 9 to 5 just before for a couple of months, just before COVID hit. So this is: I started my business in January 2020. And COVID, as you may remember, hit in March, April; April time. And I was very blessed because my role allowed me to work from home on occasion anyway, but I wasn't full-time from home. So back when I worked in the office, I had an office in Blackfriars and it was a really beautiful office. Those of you who know London will know the Blackfriars area. There's some very, very nice offices there.
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I had a really beautiful desk in an open-plan office, really great team. And so because it was open-plan. And because we were the type of trendy workplace where we were given our own laptops, given our own phones, given our own credit cards-like, the works. I didn't ever do business stuff at my desk, but I would go into a meeting room and book out a meeting room. Or if I've had a meeting, I would often like stay for another 30 minutes and do some work on my business, creating content, watching training. And then of course, is the period when I was working from home because of COVID and, you know, everybody's scenario was very different during COVID. I actually got busier with the situation because I used to sell HR services to HR C-suite in billion-dollar organizations.
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So my. My client pool was a Nordic client pool and a UK client pool, so I covered like Europe and UK. I would look after key accounts and help grow those accounts by selling them HR services. So as you can imagine with COVID, with people doing redundancies, people doing furlough, people figuring out how to work from home, all of that were HR problems. So I got extra busy in my corporate job when most of my coach friends. So I got extra busy in my corporate job when most of my coach friends were being furloughed, were having all the time in the world and still getting paid for it. My workload was doubling in my nine to five. Yes, I still had a job, so I was very grateful, but, um, but yeah, I was busy.
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I was very busy and yet I still made time to work on my business. Now, before we go any further into this episode, it is important for me to say that you are your own responsibility. You do not have to do anything that I'm telling you to do. I am sharing the things that I did and the mindset that I had around that in order to work on my business during work hours. And I'm going to share some of the perspectives that may serve you if you are choosing to do that, but feeling guilty when you do. Now, there are some of you who immediately probably saw this podcast episode and are listening out of pure curiosity. Well, circumstantially, you are in the kind of role where working during work hours isn't an option.
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Maybe you work in a hospital and you don't have access to a laptop most of the time because you're with patients. Not going to be a viable option for you, let's be honest. So there are going to be some professions where working during work hours, like building business during work hours is a no-go because of the circumstances of your role. For some of you, you're going to be doing this anyway, but feeling shit about it. This episode is for you. There are some of you who are doing this, building your business around your work hours, and maybe there is an integrity piece that we need to discuss so that you're not dropping the ball on your nine to five.
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So I want to speak to all of those things because I do think it's really important to address everybody's circumstances are different. Your circumstances are going to be slightly different to mine. Some of you will really relate because maybe you worked in management. Maybe you worked in consultancy like I did, maybe you work in corporate like I did, maybe you just work in the kind of organization where you're on your laptop, you have autonomy, you work from home, you have the time freedom to do it, and you're kind of dabbling, but you're feeling guilty about that, and you're not really all in or either, and you're feeling the problem of that. And the reason that's problematic is because when you are doing actions that are not in integrity: with your truth; when you're taking actions, but you're doing them in a way that you know is going to hurt someone, yourself, others, or is going to break the rules in some way, then we need to look at that.
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Because otherwise, you're not building an aligned business. Your thoughts are probably causing you to make it feel rough. It's going to feel like you can't do this. It's going to feel like you're struggling. It's going to feel like you're struggling to find the time to honor the time; you're going to feel like you're cheating on your job. All of this is a recipe for burnout. It's a recipe for not feeling good in your day-to-day. It's a recipe for feeling like you're going to get caught, like you're going to get found out, which is also very close to how imposter syndrome feels. And of course, there's this identity challenge because you know your work identity really well. You have a self-concept in your current job title with your career.
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You have a self-concept in your current career that is probably, if not familiar, at least, or sorry, if not established, if not familiar, so you've got all of that inner self-concept that you're grappling with alongside this new identity of stepping into being this front-facing, public-facing, social media creating, content-creating coach, life coach, who is out in the world communicating with members of the public, bringing them into your office. And if you're worried about getting caught because you feel guilty, if you're worried about the judgment that's going to come from that from your job, then that's going to be hindering your ability to be visible, your ability to truly be all in, no matter how many times you declare it or say it.
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It's going to be hindering your ability to really give yourself enough focus when you are doing your business activities, especially if you're doing them within work hours, because you feel like you're working on stolen time. It's going to be hindering your ability to really give yourself enough focus when you are doing your business activities, especially if you're doing them within work hours, because you feel like you're working on stolen time. Can you really expect yourself to produce your best work and create the best content and create the most activating, enticing, attracting content when you're secretly worried that you're going to be caught out? Like, no, of course not. Like, this is, it's incongruent, and that shows. I remember being in a meeting, and I was in a meeting with these stakeholders with one of my Nordic clients.
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And I don't know if any of you have ever worked with Nordic companies before, maybe in your corporate job. I know one of my clients does, and they're very consensus-driven. So, in an organization, no matter how big, because I worked with like billion-dollar revenue organizations and above. So, as you can imagine, I was looking after oil companies, financial institutions, manufacturing companies, like that kind of scale. A couple of household names, but most of them are, you know, business-to-business. And so these like HR specialists would have the C-suite. And in order to get anything signed off by these teams, you would often have to get the consensus of the entire C-suite. So for most of my UK clients, I would only deal with the Chief HR Officer. But for my Nordic clients, I would know the Chief HR Officer and I would probably know most of his subordinates in his direct line of work.
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So I'm in one of these meetings delivering a presentation, and I've got my like suit on and my professional face on, and I'm all in like my corporate, like, no, no fucking around with me. I'm here to make business. I'm going to sign this deal. I'm going to get this across the line because I worked in like a revenue-driven role. And I had my WebEx up. So we use WebEx. Well, we, we, I used to use WebEx and then I had Canva and then I had my presentation and it was in PowerPoint. And I went to share my screen. Oh, it's so cringe! And I accidentally shared Canva at the time I'm a career coach. And it had like stuff about changing your job and deserving fulfillment in yourself.
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And I was like, 'I need to do this.' And I swear, I was up for like a millisecond. And as soon as I realized, I was like, 'Delete' and bring up... I'm like, 'Oh, sorry, wrong, wrong tab.' Opened up the PowerPoint. Holy shit. Now that was a fucking lesson and a half in what not to do. So, from that moment on, after I like literally died inside, still had to deliver the presentation, still got it over the line. I was still cringing every step of the way, thinking that the, you know, my boss was going to find out and smite me. Deep breath, everybody. I decided in that moment that even if I was going to steal an hour that was otherwise not being utilized, then I would have a rule where I would never, ever have all of the tabs open on the same tab as it pertained to either my coaching or my nine to five.
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So all of my nine to five stuff would be on like one thing. And then that would have all the tabs open. And then on the other thing, on the other window, separate to that, that would be my business tabs. And then after experimenting with that, I then implemented this rule for myself. That if I was doing nine to five stuff, I didn't, I categorically would not have any tabs open that were to do with coaching. I wouldn't have training up. I wouldn't have Facebook up. I wouldn't have Canva. I wouldn't have, um, Kajabi, like all of that stuff was just a no-go. And in my mind, I needed to create very clear separation to be able to uphold my own integrity in my role, because that is important to me.
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Now that's a very specific example. I encourage you to do the same. You're welcome to experiment with it. I also have since learned, I didn't know this at the time that on a laptop and in what, in, um, Microsoft applications, you can also do separate desktops. I don't know how to do that or else I'd give you the shorthand, but you can also create a separate desktop. So you can just have one desk desktop open for nine to five stuff, one desktop open for business. I also have clients who have separate laptops. I used to have a separate laptop for business and nine to five, um, and nine to five. But the truth is, I ended up just using the one laptop for all the things. So it is what it is.
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And when I gave it back to my nine-to-five, when I left, I had to make sure I wiped all of that information. So that's something that is important to consider, but the other, the bigger picture, the more important stuff is, what this is actually hitting on. Whenever you are working during work, working on business during work nine to five hours, what comes up for my clients is this concern around integrity and this, this very real feeling of guilt and this very real feeling of not really giving all of your energy and attention to your nine to five being worried you'll be caught out, but also knowing in yourself that your, um, commitment, and your focus on your nine to five is slipping. And so this is where a couple of things need to happen.
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And especially for my clients who are in anything from manager, senior manager, VP, or C-suite positions. One thing that I always remind them is that your job is the kind of job where they are probably no longer paying you just for your time. They are paying you for your experience, for your value, and for your troubleshooting and for your management and for your strategic perspective on what the department or what the business or what the role needs, which means when you have downtime, when you're going through quiet periods in your nine to five, then let it be quiet because you know that when shit hits the fan in your nine to five, you're going to be quiet.
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And so when you're going through quiet periods in your nine to five, or things get busy, or when they really need you, then you can give yourself full permission to embrace the job fully, to be there fully, to give it the time and attention that you need, and put the business down and do that unapologetically. Because frankly, let's think about all of the employees that that company probably hires, where people take long lunch breaks, they scroll on their social media when they should be working, chatting at the coffee machine for like an extra fricking 30 minutes, not getting deals over the line if they're in revenue-generating roles, not actually executing very effectively in their role, even if they are working constantly. So this links closely to you also recognizing the value that you do bring to your job.
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You actually recognizing, that you do this job for a reason; they hired you for a reason, you are highly effective in your job. And if you don't believe that, then you owe it to yourself to start doing some work on recognizing where you are highly valuable in your nine-to-five. And that the work you do do in your job, whatever it is, is sufficient. And you are very good at it. Because you're acting like you're not very good at your job. You're telling yourself that you don't like it, that it's not interesting, it's not fulfilling, it's not satisfying for you, only creates more distress for you. Only creates more incongruence for you. And the truth is right now, your job is serving you far beyond your desire for contribution.
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Because that's where your business comes in. So before you had a business, yes, your career, your nine to five, absolutely should be the dream job. Why the fuck not hold that standard for yourself? And heck, I am all for having the dream job. And having the business, you can have it all. But if you are in a position where the job doesn't satisfy you anymore, where maybe you're underpaid, underutilized, you can either complain, or you can say, 'I can't complain about it.' You can either internalize it and start making yourself the problem, which does absolutely nothing for nobody, especially you. Or you go, 'huh, this is great.' I can do my job really fucking well. But I don't have to care to in the to the extent that I don't have to give more of myself than is necessary.
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I can just do a good job. And I can do a good job. And be happy that I'm doing a really good working job. Because all of my clients that work with me one-to-one are high-integrity individuals. And if it gets to a stage where your job is that unbearable, then it's your responsibility to do something about it. It isn't your business's job to save you from your nine-to-five. I don't want you to be thinking, 'It's my nine-to-five' or my business,' just because both have the potential to make you income. What if you separated your business from being some kind of saviour or replacement to your nine to five, but you actually dealt with the nine to five problem in and of itself?
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Imagine you didn't have a business, what would you be doing about your nine to five? Would you be looking for a job? Great, look for a job, then make that your priority for the next three months. If it's actually no, I'm going to stay in my job. And it doesn't really satisfy me. Well, then it's your responsibility. If you're going to choose to stay, make it work for you. That means telling yourself a different story, changing your attitude towards it, changing the self-concept. When I do this with my clients, it's actually very interesting. A lot of this looks like reconnecting to the what you liked about the job in the first place. A lot of it is actually bringing some of your coaching skills into some of the challenging situations that you're facing at work.
00:19:41
Where can you leverage your coaching skills? Where can you leverage your coaching skills? Where can you leverage your skill to help you manage your job better? This is what we do in one-to-one, inside the exit plan as well. Because here's the thing. If you end up leaving your nine to five because you couldn't hack it, because you couldn't, within reason, because don't get me wrong, there are some circumstances where you don't have to deal with that shit. And it is better to remove yourself from an unhealthy or toxic environment. So do not take this out on yourself. But within the context where it really is actually a diminishment of your attitude, of your embracing of the job, of you recognizing your value in the job, of you actually embracing the work you do, the mission of the organization, the way that they support their clients and the services that they deliver, the more you disconnect from that, the more you disconnect from that.
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And that's why it is essential that you do that. And that's why you do that. And that's why you do stay connected to that while you build your business, so that it can help support you in building your business. When you maintain that level of integrity, what happens is that suddenly you have more energy; you have more capacity. So, that when you are looking at your nine-to-five through the lens of, 'Well, I do a really good job. I know I'll drop everything and deal with work, work, drama, crisis issues.' If I need to, I'm also growing my capacity to be able to hold both so that I don't finish work fricking drained every day because I've changed my attitude; I've changed my behaviors.
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I've changed my mindset around it, which means I've got more energy to give my job, my business. But also when I do steal pockets of time in my nine-to-five, I'm doing it from a high-integrity place because I know it's not actually taking away from my responsibility in whatever my role is in this company, because I'm still prioritizing it. And if I'm choosing to do something that is really exciting, really lights me up, really productive in my business during those times, it's sure is how is better than just wasting 20 minutes at the fricking coffee machine chatting to somebody because I'm trying to just let the hours tick by faster. So I've given you lots, lots to think about here.
00:22:12
There is so many angles to this, but I hope this helps normalize a little bit that, and trust me, you may not know as many coaches that I do that are building their business around the nine to five, but the majority of them are stealing pockets of time during their nine-to-five hours to build their business. If this is what you're going to do and you're choosing to do it, you either get to do it from a place of empowerment and integrity, or you're doing it at a place where you're eating away at your consciousness and it's not serving you or your business or your nine-to-five and your organization, your team, your manager, your business, your clients, and you, your future, your mission, your vision, your dream deserve better than that.
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So listen to this podcast again. You may have to like revisit it a few times, but if you really want support with this, then my one-to-one is absolutely the highest place that we can do that together. But also, you will, if you join one-to-one, you also get the exit. But if from an investment perspective, that isn't something that you can do right now, I highly recommend the exit plan because that isn't just about creating an exit plan. It is also about helping you thrive in the nine to five, as well, because it is a very I give you some very frank, very powerful, introspective things to explore, to look at, and to identify in your nine to five, so that you can make your nine to five more enjoyable and connect to it from a high integrity place again. All right. That's it for now. Thank you so much for joining, and I'll see you in the next episode.
