Kristen 0:00
Hey y’all, welcome to this episode of the savvy teacher seller. I’m your host, Kristen Doyle. And today we are tackling a topic that most of us don’t spend a lot of time talking about in public circles. You know how some days that you feel like Superwoman, like you can do all the things. And then a few days later, just getting out of bed takes all the energy you can muster and you feel like you can’t get anything done in your business.
Kristen 0:25
It can leave you wondering if you can ever be consistent enough to really grow a successful business. And you know, I am all about ditching the hustle and building a sustainable business that doesn’t burn you out. And our guest today is here to help.
Kristen 0:41
Tiffany Sharada is a productivity mentor, tech strategist and certified period coach. Yes, that is a thing, who is on a mission to tackle the taboo and bring more flow into our lives as entrepreneurs. After she experienced burnout in her own business trying to hustle her way to success, Tiffany found a new way of working within the natural ebbs and flows of her cycle. And now she works with other female entrepreneurs to help them do the same thing.
Kristen 1:08
Tiffany helps her clients channel the strengths of each phase of their cycle, and embrace the consistency that technology and automation can bring it to their business.
Kristen 1:20
Hey, TPT sellers ready to see growth in your business. You’re in the right place. Welcome to the savvy teacher seller. I’m Kristen Doyle. And I’m here to give you no fluff tools and strategies that will really make an impact on your sales. Let’s get started y’all.
Kristen 1:43
Hi, Tiffany, thank you so much for joining me today.
Tiffany 1:48
Thank you so much for having me.
Kristen 1:51
So I would love to just get started maybe with a little background on how on earth did you get into period coaching?
Tiffany 2:00
So it really started with my own journey of burnout. And realizing that the way I was running my business wasn’t the way I should be running my business that I needed to make some changes. When I launched my business, and one of my mentors, Tash Corbin, in her community with Sasha Washburn. Sasha is the period coach. So she was always kind of on the periphery of where I was.
Tiffany 2:28
And the more I realized that my burnout was actually related to my cycle, related to me pushing through where I didn’t need to be pushing, the more I realized that this is kind of where I needed to be. And I saw it so frequently with creative entrepreneurs, especially creative service entrepreneurs, because we’re taught to hustle and push and you need to wake up at 5am, you need to do these things. And it wasn’t working for me to the point where I was ready to toss it all in, burn it all down and go back to a 9-5.
Kristen 3:08
I think we’ve all been there, right? Everyone has been there at some point.
Tiffany 3:12
So, it really was just me realizing that this is something I could do for myself diving into learning about my cycle. And then Stasha launched the period coaching school. And when it opened last year, I decided, You know what, I see such a need for this, and I want to go deeper. So I put my hand up and joined and became a certified period coach.
Kristen 3:38
So cool. Since I’ve gotten to know you and been in your world a little bit. I have just noticed in my own life, how many times the way I’m feeling is so related to where I am in my cycle. And it’s an easy thing to forget about. Typically, it’s when I catch myself feeling bad. And then I see my calendar, I’m like, Oh, right. Okay.
Tiffany 4:02
One of my favorite questions has become, where are you in your cycle, especially when I am listening to someone beat themselves up, over not being productive, not doing the things that they gave themselves to do. It’s not even like there’s an outside deadline. It’s our internal dialogue and deadline that gives us that guilt of I wrote this list last week, I could have accomplished this last week. And it just changes and our productivity changes, our mindset changes. Our hormones have such a huge impact on every bit of our lives. And really diving in and learning about that has changed how I work.
Kristen 4:49
Yeah, I don’t know if I told you this. That was my first introduction to you. I was messaging a friend Laura Kilmark, who you know, and I was just basically beating myself up up and I was ready to burn my whole business to the ground. And she came back with this one question in the middle of my who knows how many minute long Voxer rant? She types this question, where are you in your cycle right now? And as soon as she did, I said, Oh, yeah. Okay. And that was when she said you need to get to know, Tiffany. We started talking about you from there.
Tiffany 5:29
It’s just such an illuminating question. That even though we might not know, all of the information, we know ourselves enough that when we get that question we really can think about and be like, oh, yeah, this is normal. This is part of my normal. And so many of my clients, it really is that that one question where, especially that switch from Super Woman phase, to the next phase, you can really just feel down on yourself. And sometimes like, I ask it, but so many times, clients have said to me, Oh, my partner picks up on my cycle even more than I do.
Kristen 6:15
Yes.
Tiffany 6:16
So it’s not just women who need to be aware of this, but our partners, our co workers, when they’re aware of it, it helps us to understand it, it helps for them to understand it, so that when they see us spiraling downwards, they can ask that question.
Kristen 6:35
Speaking of our partners, and other people, when it comes to scheduling things around our cycle and understanding those different phases, can you speak just a little bit to our listeners who don’t have a regular cycle? Maybe they are men who are listening, there’s a few of them out there, or women who don’t have a cycle right now, whether it’s, you know, pregnancy or menopause, or whatever other reason? How can those people kind of tap into this same idea of phases that we’re working in.
Tiffany 7:04
So a lot of times if my clients don’t have a cycle, perimenopause, creating a Crazy Cycle, I talked to him about the moon, starting out using the moon as their reference point, rather than obviously, a menstrual cycle, because theirs is either messed up, they don’t have one, or they’ve never had one. So using the moon as a reference point when they start tracking, and then from there, you really start to find your own natural cycle, which may not line up perfectly with the moon.
Tiffany 7:34
But it’s a reference point to start from, because the biggest thing for even my clients who I go through all of the phases with them, what works for me in my menstrual phase might not be their superpower during menstrual. The general information I provide gives them a starting point, something that they can look to as okay, this is where I start, but then I’m there to track and find my natural superpowers.
Kristen 8:06
I love that I think it’s so interesting that we can use something as simple as moon phases to kind of help us figure this out. Let’s talk about those different phases a little bit, what are the phases in our cycle? And then, you know, how can we use that in our business.
Tiffany 8:22
So we’ll start with the menstrual phase, because that is the easiest phase for people to identify. That is when you start your period, it is day one. It’s also aligned with the new moon. So I’ll give you the menstrual phase, the moon phase, and the season it’s aligned with it’s aligned with winter. Those people who kind of look at it more seasonally rather than within their cycle. And it’s really a great time for big picture thinking. It’s a great time to declutter and release things. There’s a lot of like internal focus. So great time for meditations and just really turning inward.
Tiffany 9:03
If you think about winter, what do you want to do you want to hibernate and just be all cozy and warm. But there’s also a lot of low energy in that phase. So you don’t want to be doing the doing it’s really a thinking phase, you know, jot those notes down. To come back to at a later point. It’s a great time to answer the question why, that’s where you start. Everyone starts there, that’s day one.
Tiffany 9:27
From menstrual we go into the follicular phase, and this is spring, or your waxing moon. For most people, your menstrual cycle hits about, you know, five to seven days. And once you stop bleeding, that’s when you’re in that follicular, but you may notice that that energy because it’s not black and white. It’s not like oh, here’s the end of menstrual. I’m going to start follicular, you’re going to feel that energy start to change usually around day five to seven for follicular. This is where you want to start creating those to do lists that planning, create content, it’s a creative space, you’re starting to look outward.
Tiffany 10:08
It’s that springtime budding energy, you’re focused on how. So that menstrual phase you focused on why, now you want to focus on how to accomplish those big picture plans that you’ve come up with. So it really is the planning and the lists. From there we go into ovulation. Ovulation is exactly what it sounds like, it’s when your body is ready to release the egg. It is the shortest period of time in your cycle, typically around day 14, right in the smack middle of the cycle. And this is your doing phase, this is where you are at peak energy.
Tiffany 10:48
So I call it the Superwoman phase. And this is where a lot of people get caught, because they can burn the candle at both ends. They can do all of the things during this phase. It’s your peak verbal skills. So recording that podcast or you know doing those Facebook Lives during ovulation is really that peak time to do it. It’s also the peak of your self confidence. It is that phase where the clothes fit good, everything feels good in your body.
Kristen 11:17
I tell you, I tried to batch record podcasts yesterday. I was not in the right space for that it was so hard to get started. I got it done. But it was so hard to get going and hearing you say like I was doing that in the wrong season, the wrong week to be trying to crank out a bunch of content creation for sure.
Tiffany 11:40
Yeah, this is that full moon phase. I mean, the little bit of craziness. But summer season is a great time for those tough conversations. Because I work with clients not just through their their menstrual cycle, but with some of the tech that can support their cycle. This is a great time to create those templates in your Gmail for you know what to send when accounts are overdue or what to send when there could be that conflict, think it through, create the template. Here’s where you have that compassion yet strength to create those types of templates.
Tiffany 12:16
From ovulation, you’re going to head into your luteal phase. And this is where your hormones start to decrease. So this is that Autumn type phase, the waning moon, you’re really going to start to feel that decline in energy, a lot of women actually will get like a second wind during this phase. So they can do some some of the doing but for the most part, it’s lower energy. It’s not quite as high as that ovulation peak. This is a great time to ask that what question, to review and evaluate what’s happened. Some of my clients we don’t do monthly planning or review at the start of the month. We do it when they’re in their luteal phase, it’s a great time to kind of collect that data and look back at it.
Kristen 13:02
Yeah, I was just thinking as TPT sellers, we need to about once a month to take a look at our sales data, what is it telling us about our products start making plans for what kind of changes we need to make. It sounds like that would be the perfect time to do that.
Tiffany 13:15
Yeah, and you don’t have to do it at the first of the month, you can do it when it fits your cycle. Even if you want to collect the data so that your data fits nicely in the calendar, you can collect that data, you can export it into a format that you can then go back to review. Just because you’ve collected the information doesn’t mean you have to review it when you collect it.
Tiffany 13:35
I also tell my clients, this is not the time to go shopping. It’s the period of time where most people are going to notice if they have an imbalance in their hormones. There could be some of that self confidence. This is most likely the time that entrepreneurs are going to have the I want to just burn it all down and walk away. This is the phase where it’s most likely to show up. And that is like basically the four primary phases of the cycle.
Tiffany 14:03
When I talk with clients, I also include what I call the deep luteal phase. And this is three days before your period or four days before your period. This is where all of the hormones have completely bottomed out, I talk about it to my clients in reference to myself as hitting a brick wall. All of a sudden, I have no energy, I can’t do a single thing. My brain stops functioning, I would not be able to have a conversation. It is really important for that, that period of rest, just to give yourself space.
Tiffany 14:41
It’s a great time to go for a walk on the beach and just nurture yourself and ground yourself or walk in the woods. It’s a great time to just get outside the house and go into that natural space wherever it is that you are, whatever it is that you prefer, but to just really get into nature’s energy. It is so important to rest during this phase. Because if you’re not resting and taking care of yourself here, it’s going to make the whole next cycle so much harder.
Kristen 15:11
Yeah, it’s easy to, you know, burn the candle at both ends when we feel like it, and then wear ourselves out on that, really, because sometimes we forget about the rest, at least I know I do. For sure.
Tiffany 15:22
I used to anymore. It’s in my calendar now.
Kristen 15:27
I did, I put phases in my calendar. And they’re not always perfect, but I’ve been kind of tweaking and adjusting them. And it really is so helpful to see it on my calendar when I look at what I’m doing today. And just know like, Okay, this is why I feel the way I do right now. And maybe today’s not a good day to tackle this thing I think has to be done right now. And maybe I can move it to a better time in a week or two.
Tiffany 15:51
For me, it’s helped me so much with planning, because I sit down, and I plan out my quarter. And when I plan when I’m going to do something, again, having it in my calendar, I can look and be like, Okay, so this is the ovulation phase. I know I’m gonna have energy to do stuff, but I can’t jam pack my calendar. Ovulation, I can jam pack, I can create all of that both ends. Its peak verbal, if I’m gonna run a master class, I’m going to run it during my ovulation days.
Tiffany 16:28
Most of the time, I scheduled podcast interviews during that phase, this time, not so much. I know where I’m at. So I knew like for today, creating a schedule that gave me space. So that after I have space to regenerate my energy, because I’m pulling some of that extra energy for an interview, where even if you’re doing something, you know, a presentation where you might not have control over the timing of it. The awareness of your cycle and how much energy you have, at that point is so useful.
Kristen 17:08
I love that it’s so helpful to just like you said, just be aware, so that you can plan things the right way and give yourself space when you need it and work harder when you can. I know one big thing for me has been kind of breaking away from the calendar a little bit. And instead focusing more on phases.
Kristen 17:29
A month or so ago, I looked at all the productive days, it was like Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And then the I need rest days were right in the middle of the week. And I thought well, great. This is gonna be a waste this whole month. But no, you know, we’ve work for ourselves. So we really can choose to work on a Saturday because I’m feeling productive today and take a nap on a Wednesday because I’m exhausted and it’s that time.
Speaker 1 17:56
And I get that not everyone has that flexibility. But for entrepreneurs, it really does give you the flexibility of really working in flow. And if you don’t have that flexibility, just that awareness so that you can kind of make sure, okay, I need to be on at work. But when I get home, I’m not planning to go out to dinner, I’m not planning these extra things, I’m going to make sure that I have food in the freezer to just pull out and make dinner for everybody.
Kristen 18:28
My listeners are side hustle entrepreneurs, so they’re teaching full time during the day, which means you don’t have a choice. You have to go and be on during the day. But that probably means they need to pick and choose which nights they’re going to work on their business and which nights they’re going to just hang out on the couch and rest or do things with their kids or whatever as opposed to trying to be productive and get work done in a phase where that feels so hard.
Tiffany 18:56
Yeah, and that’s what leads to burnout is that pushing through in the wrong time is pushing through if you have this energy, especially luteal phase, because it is such a long part of our cycle. And you may experience that second wind, giving yourself the space to make the decision of okay, I only want to produce one thing during this cycle during this phase of my cycle. And when I have that extra bit of energy if I get two things done great. But the focus is one.
Kristen 19:34
And definitely looking ahead would help, just plan out when we’re going to do different things because I know for all of us different things feel easy versus hard. For me creating new TPT products, updating TPT products those things feel easy to me, but creating like the social media content and the emails and the marketing stuff feels a lot harder for me. So, what I choose to do during different phases, definitely needs to reflect that.
Tiffany 20:06
Yeah. And that’s kind of where like a lot of my clients bridge between my period coaching and my tech strategy work is using the technology to kind of give that consistent look, versus the actual constant doing. I love tech and automation. And I’m sure you do, too, where I can schedule my social media content when I’m in ovulation, and the brain is firing on all four cylinders, and everything is just working together. And then I don’t have to worry about it till the next ovulation cycle.
Tiffany 20:48
I can tweak and change as needed throughout the cycle. But for the most part, it’s done, I don’t have to think about it again. And the same thing goes for newsletters I use Wis Willcox templates, and it just I go in, I draft them out. And then the week that they go out, I just go in and tweak. And sometimes I don’t even do, whatever I wrote at that point is good enough, let’s just send it out, let’s you know, be consistent. And it is just that balance of showing up when I can and how I can. But using tech and automation to support my business when I can’t show up.
Kristen 21:31
Definitely it helps so much to be able to plan things out and schedule them ahead of time for sure. This has been such a good conversation for people who are maybe just starting to think about this, what would you say is the first step toward working within your flow in your business?
Tiffany 21:48
The very first thing is to start tracking. That is where I start with all my clients is let’s track one figuring out where you are in your cycle. Because a lot of women don’t know. They know when they bleed, but they don’t know when they ovulate. They don’t know all of the phases of their cycle. We’re so used to dismissing our body that they don’t know where they are. So that’s the first thing I tell clients is let’s track let’s see where you’re at.
Tiffany 22:18
But also tracking kind of like you said, what are the things that are easy all the time? What are the things that are easy when and just really starting to learn to understand and trust ourselves? So I start every client with tracking, that is the number one thing is let’s take this general picture and see, okay, we’re going to use this as the basis. But let’s then take it and filter in on you individually. Because what works for me in my cycle might not work for you in your cycle. You know, it’s different for everybody.
Kristen 22:51
Yeah, absolutely. And you have a freebie on your website that helps with that. Right?
Tiffany 22:58
Yes, my phases in flow free opt in. And it gives you the basics of the phases as I outlined earlier, but also a tracking sheet to just really kind of start tracking. What did you do today? What phase are you in? Was it easy or hard? You don’t have to go any deeper than that. It’s all about how it feels?
Kristen 23:17
Did this feel good? Or did this feel not good today, so eye opening to start paying attention to that. And instead of just thinking like, Oh, this feels hard, because I just don’t like it, thinking about maybe this would feel easier at a different time.
Tiffany 23:31
That’s the goal is to be able to plan it where it feels easy. There’s gonna be things that you just don’t like doing. But there’s going to be phases where it feels easier than other phases. For me, it helped a lot with procrastination. I realized I procrastinated on doing my newsletters. Because I didn’t have the words. And if I didn’t have the words, I couldn’t put them into the newsletter. But once I realized doing it during my ovulation phase, gave me the words I embraced that superpower.
Kristen 24:01
I don’t know how many times lately I’ve told friends like I have this thing to do. And I don’t know why. But I can’t. I can’t start and then just realizing later Oh, well here’s why I couldn’t start. I just didn’t have the energy for that at that time. And I needed to just wait a little bit and do it on a day when I did have the energy.
Tiffany 24:21
And it really does come down to you know energy management, time management and understanding where you’re starting from with energy. If you’re starting from a full battery, you have more energy to give the day. If you’re in that deep luteal phase where it’s a low energy you’re starting without a whole lot. So you need to be more intentional with where you’re willing to put that energy out.
Kristen 24:47
And it definitely helps just keep from spinning your wheels because I don’t know about you but when I am spinning my wheels and I can’t do it then I start to beat myself up to over why can’t I just get this done. I’m wasting so much time I’m right now. It helps all of that.
Tiffany 25:03
Like I said, the key question when I have clients that come in with that guilt is where are you in your cycle?
Kristen 25:10
So definitely the place to start is with tracking and we’ll put the link for that freebie in the show notes so everybody can get to that. Thank you again, so much for being here and talking through all of this with us today. Can you tell everybody where they can connect with you and learn more?
Speaker 1 25:26
Getting on my newsletter is a great place to start. And if you sign up for that, freebie you are added to my list and then Facebook and Instagram @Tiffanymariestudio. I would love to connect with you.
Kristen 25:38
Awesome. Thank you so much for being here. Tiffany,
Tiffany 25:40
Thank you so much for having.
Kristen 25:42
That’s it for today’s episode of the savvy teacher seller. I hope this conversation with Tiffany has given you some ideas about some new ways to structure the tasks you’re doing within your business, to embrace some automations and tech tools to help you get through the season you aren’t really in the mood to do any work. And to find more peaceful productivity by giving yourself grace and space in those phases where we are not feeling as productive.
Kristen 26:09
If you want to connect with Tiffany, you can find all of her links in the show notes for this episode, along with the link for that free phases tracker that will help you remember what we talked about in this episode and also track how you’re feeling and what tasks are feeling good to you at different parts of your cycle every month. Talk to you soon friends.
Kristen 26:32
I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. If you did, please share it with another teacher seller who would also find it helpful. For more resources on Growing Your TPT business. Head to Kristendoyle.co/TPT. Talk to you soon.
