196 | Inside Out 2 + lessons in running a professional organizing business
What lessons can Inside Out 2 teach us about entrepreneurship? Melissa is going to tell you!
In this episode, Melissa is discussing harnessing emotions for personal and entrepreneurial growth, inspired by her recent life-changing trip to Japan and insights gained from watching the movie 'Inside Out 2'.
Melissa shares her experiences with the KonMari organization, emphasizes the importance of enjoying what you love without guilt, and uses the movie's concept to provide valuable lessons on managing emotions within the entrepreneurial journey.
She encourages listeners to evaluate which emotions are controlling their 'control panel' and to use this awareness to drive positive changes in their lives and businesses.
You can listen here, read the full transcript below, or find us on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you love to listen to podcasts!
Timestamps:
00:00 Welcome Back! Melissa's Return and Life Updates
01:45 Embracing Your Guilty Pleasures
03:50 Inside Out 2: Lessons for Organizers
07:02 Managing Emotions in Entrepreneurship
09:40 The Impact of Organizing on Mental Health
12:20 Final Thoughts and Encouragement
LINKS FOR LISTENERS
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timestamps:
00:00 Welcome Back! Melissa's Return and Life Updates
01:45 Embracing Your Guilty Pleasures
03:50 Inside Out 2: Lessons for Organizers
07:02 Managing Emotions in Entrepreneurship
09:40 The Impact of Organizing on Mental Health
12:20 Final Thoughts and Encouragement
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Hey pro organizers it's Melissa. And what I always tell people is if you haven't sent an email to your list of subscribers in a while, don't be like, Hey, I've been gone for a long time. Did you miss me? Uh, but I'm gonna violate that here. I have been taking a little break from the podcast for a bit. I had a bunch of things going on, you know, just first of all, regular life. And then I was in Japan for 10, absolutely amazing life-changing days. I'm going to be talking about it sometime soon because it. Truly just made me think so much about, you know, what I want out of my business and out of my life and all sorts of things.
It was actually a very deep trip. I took with the KonMari organization. So we got to spend a lot of time with Marie Kondo and her husband who is an integral part with growing, organizing all across the world. I got to spend time with organizers from Japan, the Philippines, Australia, all over the United States, Slovenia the Netherlands just so many places. It was absolutely wonderful, but because of that, and then I came home and had a lot of jet lag. Um, and I was just taking a break, honestly, to think about a few things that I want for my business in my life, but I had a nice restful break and I'm back and I have missed you all. And today I just wanted to do a little mini-sode for you to ease you back in, because I know it's summer and summer could be different for a lot of our businesses and for lives and all of that, that kind of thing. But I want to talk to you about something that you might be like, uh, Melissa just took a little break, like it. Now she's talking about cartoons on the podcast. Like, what is she doing? But please go with me because I always have a plan for you guys.
so there is something that I heard about recently that I really love.
It's this concept of, have you ever heard someone say. XYZ is my guilty pleasure. You know, this show is a guilty pleasure. This podcast is a guilty pleasure.
And I read something that was like, we shouldn't have guilty pleasures. We should just be allowed to enjoy the things that we enjoy without having to overexplain them or having to justify or make excuses as to why we like them. And I love that because I have myself said like, oh, well, I watch such and such a show. It's just a guilty pleasure. So it like is supposed to make you feel better. You know, Guess what? Sometimes I like to watch a trashy television show on Bravo. Um, I stand by it.
It's not a guilty pleasure. It's just something I enjoy. Below deck fans. I'm talking to you. Anybody at below deck fan, just send me some messages. Cause I've been to doing some BingeOn on below deck, but anyway, you did not come here to hear me talk about Bravo. Um, one recent example.
I have a very good friend who is very high up at her company. And she just got a new team. And she was doing a team meeting and she said, someone asked her, what do you like to read? And she had this thought of like, Hey, I really need to say. Here are the 10 business books that I'm reading right now.
And she's like, no, I'm going to tell him that, Hey, I really like reading romance novels. I read to escape. And several people after we were like, wow, thanks for answering that. Honestly, you know, she had been kind of nervous to answer it, but that's what she really loves.
Having said all that. I was just about to overexplain why I found myself in a movie theater as a grown woman with two friends in my similar age category, watching the movie inside, out to yesterday without any accompanying children
it was just three very grown adult women enjoying the heck out of a Pixar cartoon. It's not a guilty pleasure. It was a great choice. It was a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon. It was a great movie and I loved it. And I want to talk about why the whole time I was watching this movie, I was like, man, I can apply this to organizing businesses in so many ways. So for those of you who, if you haven't seen the first movie or you don't know anything about Inside Out, just a quick recap, spoiler free. Movie is Inside Out 2, which means wait for it.
There was an Inside Out one. It's about 10 years old. Absolutely glorious movie. I cannot recommend it more highly, whether you have children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, or if you're just a straight up grown woman, as I am. You will enjoy the heck out of these movies, but the concept is it's this little girl. Which, by the way, one of the reasons I think I love the movie.
If I'm being honest, The main character's name is Riley and she's from Minnesota. And I have a daughter named Reilly from Minnesota. So I'd be lying if I said that probably doesn't influence. So in my love for the movie, but anyway, the concept is this girl, Riley. Is growing up and we get to see inside her head where there is a control panel. That is run by different emotions.
So the main emotion is joy, which just coming back from a trip with Marie Kondo, I obviously heard the word joy a lot, which was wonderful. And there are other emotions like sadness and anger. If you've ever seen the gif of, uh, the red character blowing its top. That is anger from the Inside Out movie.
So all of these emotions work together and they play out so you can see. How they're controlling her in different ways and you see how they have to work together and how they try to sabotage each other and all of the things, you know, so you see this little girl, she starts to cry and sadness is making her cry.
It's adorable. It's clever. And it's cool. The first movie I'm going to be honest with you was a cry Fest. This movie did not make me feel as emotional as the last movie did, but it made me think a lot more than the first one, because the concept of the second movie is the little girl is growing up.
She's older, she's in middle school and there are a lot of new emotions coming up. And guess what new emotions are coming to live in her brain? One of the biggest ones is anxiety. Anxiety comes in her brain and starts to take over all of the other emotions. So anxiety is able to push out joy. And it's able to stifle down all of these other emotions that she has.
And then eventually anxiety takes over fully. yes, I understand it is a cartoon and it's about a 13 year old, not a 30 or 40 year old entrepreneur, but there were so many things in this movie that just made me think about the things that we do in our organizing businesses. And how our brains are sometimes absolutely wonderful helpers for us. But sometimes they can be really, really against us. There are parts of this movie where everything's going great.
And all the emotions are working well together. And then anxiety fully takes over and nothing rational is happening and anxiety eventually is controlling the whole life.
Yes, this is a cartoon, but it really has so much relevance for being an entrepreneur. And the first thing I want to say is I want to give you whether it's permission to live in the feeling or just the comfort and knowing you are not alone. In your brain sometimes wanting to derail your entrepreneurship. Right.
So think about the control panel. That we might have in our entrepreneurial brain. And that control panel has a lot of things going on in it. You know, we are doing a lot of different things in our entrepreneurial life, and there are a lot of times where I think it's easy to go. Well, I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to do that.
So I'm just not going to do it. Or man, this seems overwhelming. So I just am not going to want to deal with it, you know? There are so many times in a week that I will have someone, an organizer that will come to me and say, I really just don't know what to do about X, Y, Z, or I'm really struggling to work on ABC and my business.
And I am totally overthinking it. And when you start to overthink things, you start to go in a tailspin. And just for the record, if you think this doesn't happen to me guess again, because it happens to me all the time and I have to talk myself out of it. I have to remind myself, Hey, what would I tell someone who's coming to me in this situation?
And then I counsel myself. And, it actually reminds me of a gif that I sent this morning to a friend. And it's from one of my favorite shows, parks and recreation. And there is the main character Leslie Knope, and she is sending herself a voicemail saying, hi, Leslie, it's me, Leslie. And I just want to remind you, you're going to do great. And I love getting all this inspiration from the silliest places in pop culture and applying it to my business. So I just want you to know. You are not alone in sometimes the things that your brain is doing to you, whatever emotions are at that control panel in your brain, whether it is self doubt, it's
it's overthinking. It is stress, anxiety, fear. All of those things are a million things that could be derailing. You. And what I want for all of us to do, including myself. Is take inspiration from a cartoon from Pixar. And just remind yourself that you are ultimately the one that is in control. And yeah, those voices are going to be there, but we can find a way to silence those voices or an even better way is to be able to harness those emotions at the different times they need and not let one of them take over entirely.
One of the things that I think about all the time in the business, I do a pro organizer studio, which has helping people grow their organizing businesses. One of the things that was so clear to me as I traveled around Japan with organizers from around the world and hearing their stories about their clients. We also got to spend a lot of time with some wonderful organizers from Japan. And hear about the differences and how they organize and how they apply the method and homes.
But hearing all those stories just reminded me. That if we do not put ourselves out there. And if we do not start these businesses, and if we do not grow these businesses, if we don't do this work. I think about all of the individuals and families that will not live as good of a life because they didn't have the ability to get our help. You are important to your clients. And without you going out and doing this work, you might really be missing the opportunity to change someone's life. I'm just thinking about a client I have right now, who is really having a hard time with a lot of things in her life. And having some struggles with anxiety and depression. And really struggling to get out from underneath some of her past habits that she doesn't want to continue with.
And I watch her every single time we have a session. I watch her change a little bit in such good ways. And I see her getting stronger and I see her getting more confident and I see so many different things just from our organizing work. I am so grateful that I get to help her. And what if I had never put myself out there? I'm confident that I am making a difference in her life. And what if I had had that control panel of doubt and fear and lack of confidence, and I'm like, Nope, I can't start my own business. I'm just going to go get another corporate marketing job somewhere. And I'm just going to do something that I can't stand every day, instead of doing what I really want to.
I'm glad that I took that leap. And so as much as you are able to silence those voices, or just try to get that control panel back in check with evenness. So you're not letting anxiety fully take over anxiety or self-doubt, or lack of confidence overthinking. All of the things that we all struggle with in our business. I just think about how much a gift it is that we can put ourselves out there and help people across the world. I absolutely believe that organizing is a mental health help and service.
And by the way, I don't care. If someone just wants to make their pantry gorgeous. You know, if they just want an Instagram pantry and nothing else, or if on the other side of the spectrum, we are helping someone deal with chronic disorganization that has followed them their entire lives and they need help getting out from underneath it. Whatever service we're providing our clients.
It's a mental health service to help them live better in their most important space. I really encourage you. First of all, go see the movie. And take yourself to a theater.
Heck just go in the middle of the day. A friend of mine did that today. She's like, I just went to the theater today with my kids to see Inside Out 2, because why not? So it is going to inspire you. And what I want you to do is be able to figure out how you can harness all those emotions to work for you and figure out what it means to you.
And where are those control panels in your head that are getting you down? Who is leading the control panels in your head? Is it confidence? Is it empowerment? Is it excitement is a passion. Or is it fear, lack of confidence, anxiety who's at the controls of your control panel. So dive into that control panel in your brain. And figure out who you want to be driving. Okay.
So that's a little mini-sode for you. I am thrilled to be back on the podcast. I'm going to have lots of crazy stuff coming to you, but I would love to hear from you. Tell me what's going on with you this summer. Tell me how I can help you. And I hope you have a great week organizers.
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