Susan Finn 0:09
Hey there, welcome to this week's rise above noise spotlight where each week I get to shine a spotlight on somebody in our rise above noise community who's making a real difference and helping others in their business growth. like to introduce myself, I'm Susan Finn. I'm a digital marketing strategist with rise above noise where for the past, really over 15 years, I've been working with transformation creators, service based professionals, energy healers, lightworkers, coaches, teachers, I'm guiding them with their personal roadmap in their digital marketing journey. And you'll hear me often say that digital marketing is really just another word for showing up, right. So together, we create your own system, for showing up right marketing in a way that feels generous to you. And it feels in service so that you show up with consistency, then the people who are already searching for you can find it easier to find you, right? So then your business grows, and it grows with flow. And with ease. And many of you have heard me talk before, that one of my personal guidance pillars is understanding that our only true currency is our time and our energy. So as we're working at building our businesses, I really do believe that we have to practice efficiency and flow and to be able to set up your systems, our systems that allow us to shine in our own zone of genius so that we're not, we're not having our energy and our time sucked away from us. And that's why I was really excited that my friend by Nawaz Sharif agreed to hop onto the spotlight this time to share her own thoughts. This is where she spends her time right she's going to share her insights her tips or strategies on how we can grow a business using manageable trackable, actionable steps manageable, trackable, actionable steps, she's going to tell us how she guides her clients to implement effectively so that they have consistent action and are showing consistent progress by now is wants you to grow a business around your dream life and not the other way around. I know you're going to get a lot of great takeaways from today's conversation. Go ahead get a pen and a paper. Let's get right to it. Forgive me I feel like I'm speaking out of this like honking nose thing a little bit of a stuffed up back there drinking my tea. Thank you to Joanne O'Neill, who is my local herbalist who's always telling me all the right things to do to be healthy and happy and to have good. Just good brain health too. She was telling me about the lion's mane mushrooms recently that I just added into my diet. So today like I could just talk about days, but let's talk about let's do like I have my notes here today. Like let's make sure that we're using our time with Mona Mona has efficiently. And time right like time and energy so often. Anybody who's listened to me speak at all I want to make sure I'm doing this right. Oh, interesting. Hang on one second. You guys. I'm trying to figure out if I can make it so that the speaker is who shows up? Hmm. All right, well to Gallery. Let's hope for the best. So often, so I got to speak in front of oh my gosh and amazing conference last week, the South Shore conference for women was amazing. The energy there was incredible. The theme was live forward. And we had over 300 Women in a building. And we had an incredible I want to I keep saying amazing because they were amazing. It's like it. It was amazing. It was women talking about their stories and things they've overcome things that they've realized things that give them the strength to keep moving on. How we as business owners or employees or community leaders can use To our gifts, can use our skills can use our communities, to show up for ourselves, for our families, for our children, and for our communities. And I thought that was it right, I often talk about in rise above noise. I work with transformation creators. And sometimes we'd like, well, what is that, right? But I looked in this audience of over 300 people. And I thought, Gosh, everybody's here, to make a difference in their own way. And people are doing it in big huge, like, stage ways. And people are doing it in very quiet, private, heartfelt ways. And it doesn't matter, necessarily how you do it. But the fact is that if you have a skill or a message, or something that you can offer, that's going to make somebody's life easier, that's going to bring our world to live forward. In a world where we can all support each other, then it becomes our obligation to do that, right. And so often I talk about replacing the word marketing with the word showing up. And if we mark it, right, if we show up for the people who need us, then were taken care of that obligation obligation that I talked about. Now, the other thing I often talk about is Alright, great, like you got to do the things but you can't do all of the things and Manasa and I have had this conversation a few times, you can't do everything well. And if you don't know where you're going, you don't know how you're going to get there. And when I talk about time, and energy as our only true currency, we can make money, right? We can make money, we can go do things, get a job. But what we have to do is really protect our time and energy. So that we show up for the people who need us where they need us in a way that they know exactly what to do. That's why we're so excited to have Manasa has been on rise above noise before but when we were talking a couple of weeks ago, we just got so jazzed up about this topic about how we just go out and do so many of the things well, I'm I'm gonna let minnows talk about that some more. Let me go ahead and read her official bio, hang on, I have to look for it. Here we go. Man, as Sharif is a productivity mentor, specializing in empowering female solopreneurs and service providers, helping them respect right their time and their energy while building an aligned sustainable business that flows with ease and joy. And she believes and I believe she believes it's time for women to step into their power to work less, and be more, be more, be more productive, be more intentional, be more present, be more confident, be more happy, and be more empowered, whatever that means to you. Now my NAS is helping empower her clients to manage their time efficiently become laser focused and strategic with their online business growth. Her clients are mostly service based wellness professionals who are passionate about impacting their health and well being of their clients. I could go on and on. There is more here you can go over to my NAS his website. I'll share a link in a bit to learn more about her but right now you gotta learn about her about manners and she's got some stuff to share stuff. She's got great topics to share. I asked when asked what her superpower is and she said that she her superpower is breaking down strategies to grow a business into manageable trackable, actionable steps, which allows her clients to implement effectively for consistent action and progress. And I think that's probably a good place to start. Minos tell me more about your superpower how you do that breakdown strategies thing.
Mahanz Sharif 9:31
Oh, amazing. Thank you so much for having me, Susan. Yes. So my background is very much problem solving and analytical. I've got a maths degree and worked in the financial sector as an analyst for 20 years. So that's what I bring to my kind of breaking down strategies because what looks like as complex on the outside, you know, as definitely manageable if we break it down in the right way. And the whole point is to take the next step forward. So it's about you know, being positive and taking our progressive step forward. And it's not about, you know, beating ourselves about not being where we need to be. It's about just taking consistent action, because we know that all builds up. And that's what I bring into my clients, business working, you know, managing their time, so that they can be more focused and clear. And like you mentioned, Susan, it's like, we need to know where we're going, we need to know how we tend to get there. And when we put that together, you know, it can certainly feel quite overwhelming. But again, it's that small steps, just keep moving, move in the right direction. You know, it's, that's always the message from me.
Susan Finn 10:53
That's so amazing. And I, I know how it feels as an entrepreneur, as a service based professional. You're getting input from so many, you've gotta be on social if you're on so you gotta be on Facebook, it'd be on tick tock, you have to be you have to make a course you have to write a book, you have to have a workshop, you have to have a webinar. And it just seems so overwhelming. No, somebody comes to you, they've they've started their business, they know who they're working with, which I think is key. But they're feeling like there's this chaos all around them? Or, you know, how do you help them figure all of that out?
Mahanz Sharif 11:33
Yeah, well, I guess it is about being very clear on where as they're trying to go. And however clear, they think they are, is getting even more clarity on that. Because, you know, we, we often have the answers inside us as well. But like you said, there are so many distractions, so many other things that we are putting, giving our time. And when we give that our time, then what happens is it takes away our energy, you know, it changes what we're doing. And our focus doesn't necessarily stay on the right things. So being so focused, that you know, the distractions don't have a chance and being clear on the path and taking step by step. You know, mastering the time that you have, and putting your focus into aligned action, you know, not just I need to be on social media, you know, having the purpose behind all of the things that you're doing. And using that, so that you are building an aligned business, and one that actually stays and remains good. You know, like a feelgood factor, you don't want it to be made up of all these things that you don't want to be doing.
Susan Finn 12:46
But it's hard, right? It's so compelling. You think that's where that it's happening? Because you know, people answer you they like your posts.
Mahanz Sharif 12:55
Yeah. Social media has got so much pressure, but at the same time, we do need to take that step back and be able to review, you know, what are you doing? What are you putting into it? And what is it giving you do you have a return on investment and like a thinking about the return on investment in terms of it being the time investment you're putting in, because you don't just turn up on social media, you spend X number of minutes or hours per day on that platform. So it's all of the time, and then the prep work, you know, you might be creating your material, your content, your images, and maybe procrastinating over creating the right image as well. So you know, it all adds up. So if we don't have a clear intention behind why we're posting and why we're using social media or any other task we're doing, then it's not necessarily the thing that's going to bring us the results. Because it also might not be the way we want to grow our business. If we want to build a business, where social media is at the heart of generating leads for us then post every day and do it consistently and keep on doing it. But if you actually don't want to do that, then why set that up for yourself in the beginning or in that kind of? I'll change it later mindset. Because you want to build the business that you want in the future, not thinking about what other people are doing, because that's again, becomes a distraction.
Susan Finn 14:24
It has an energy sack I would say.
Mahanz Sharif 14:28
Yeah, absolutely. How much? How often do you feel like you've given more energy than taken when you are on social media?
Susan Finn 14:36
Right? That's so right. So can you give me an example say of somebody who came to like I said, right, like they want to do all the things but they know that they have a goal and so you can think of somebody you've recently worked with, how have you helped them to shed the time suckers, and to focus on their return on investment of time and energy?
Mahanz Sharif 15:00
think is that taking a step back, being able to have a meeting with yourself, you know, putting that CEO hat on, and really having that hard talk about what it is that you want, ultimately, what your vision is being very clear and being very, you know, keeping that fresh if you like, because you know, we change, right, we're all evolving and adapting, and everything changes around us. So we need to keep our, our Y and our vision, everything alive and keeping, you know, it's okay for things to change as well. And I think accepting for people I've worked with, example, comes to mind as where, you know, she was doing something that she felt she had to do, she should be doing, because she's always done it. And then all of a sudden, she bought something training of mine, and she suddenly got permission to say, I'm not going to do that anymore. And I'm going to give myself one day back every single month by not doing it. And that, you know, that was on something that I shared with her that was like a free masterclass, or something like that. So it just goes to show like, we have lots of opportunities, and exposure and two things that can really give us a huge amount of value, if we're seeking that. And if we're actually got the courage to look at ourselves in a different way and change our perspective, we just need to sometimes be and you know, rather than keep on doing everything all of the time, when we sit and reflect and think about like the return on investment, you'll think about it in terms of your time, your energy and your effort. And then think what does it give me, and really trying to have that kind of management meeting with yourself to really narrow down your focus, because then that will that will create an more aligned path for you.
Susan Finn 16:59
You gave me so many things to think about, I'm going to see which one I can pick out here. Well, one thing that I I'll pick out is how much I love networking. It's the highlight of my day, because I get to talk with really interesting people and learn about more people. And what I realized was two things that I'm doing it because I love it. Because you know, I'm not going out for lunch makers at this point, right. So it's kind of a social thing. And it feeds my brain because I want to learn, but I had to take a really close look at my networking activities, which ones were serving? Was I being very strategic in who I was networking and following up with in order to find to find connections that would help me with my goal. So I'm not always looking for a client, I'm less likely to be looking for a client than I am to be looking for a referral resource. Yes, right. I want to help people who are already working with my people, I want to help business coaches who are already working with entrepreneurs so that I can give them their email strategy, let's say or their messaging. So that's one thing, the other thing, or maybe I'll say to the both, and then you can talk about both of them. The other thing I did for quite some time, and I do it now when I'm doing client work, but I think I should start doing it for my own marketing work too, is I use a tool called toggle to GGL toggle.com. And every time I'm doing a different task, I'm keeping track of it on my toggle so that I can see, right, just like I would look at my bank account, I would look at my time account.
Mahanz Sharif 18:44
And look. Yeah, so a balance, you've got a balance of time, how are you going to use it?
Susan Finn 18:50
You mentioned earlier, like when you create the social posts, how much time the the images take, right of all the things images take the longest. That's why I love to just make a template for somebody and then just say, go ahead, like if you want to change the font, but here's where you're going. You don't have to. Yeah.
Mahanz Sharif 19:08
Yeah, exactly. I'm not simplifying it. And that's breaking it down, that's making things easier, is taking less time being more efficient. And all these things at the end of the day, save us the time, the energy and the effort that we put in. And that's the whole point. We can't buy time like you said earlier you know we can't buy time we can't buy energy, but I am a true believer that we can make time we can make our energy count by respecting it, you know, by really honoring and working in harmony with it. So when we do have low energy levels, for example, you know, we should be resting we should be listening to our bodies and building our business all around us and with a real holistic view so that you manage your day you manage all your minutes that you have to work, you manage everything you do. You are are completing and achieving things, but in a very strategic fashion, because again, there has to be that ROI and being productive with it so that you're not just doing it and getting stuck into that rabbit hole, you're actually achieving it. So you're working towards something and being productive as well. And I, that's what I like to work with my clients on it. It's like the time management side there is the strategy. And there's certainly the productivity because I feel that is the blend. That is the gives the super power together.
Susan Finn 20:31
I love it. I love everything about what you just said. Have you found that a trend with the people that you're working with when they decide yes, I'm going to be more strategic with my time? Yes. Like you talked about that one person got a whole day back? Is there a trend of what they're giving up or the way that they're reassigning the use of their time?
Mahanz Sharif 20:55
I think it's on it often is that the thing that's missing and most of our solopreneur world is looking and working on your business. And it's that whole clear definition that when you have less time that you're working in your business, working the day to day, the things that have to be done for today, then you know, when we will remove ourselves or have some time, and we actually spend it on looking at our business. So working on our business, that really creates a different shift, because we don't have enough time to work on our business, because we usually get stuck inside. So it's it's I think balancing that. And that is the big change that needs to take place in order for you to then see, right, here's my goal. What What else can I do to you know, do more of this? What how can I, you know, increase whatever goals you have set are what numbers and figures you might be looking at, to really push that to the level that you want to move to and what what success looks like for you.
Susan Finn 21:59
I love that. You're making me think now when I had the we have a race together membership group. And we haven't reactivated this yet. But I have to think about this on once a week on Friday mornings, I actually still do this with a group of people. But I haven't offered it through rise together yet. We meet for one hour each week. And that's to work on the business in the business we look at right we look at our calendars, we look at our networking follow up. We were we look at our our money, right, our invoicing and our expenses, we look at all the little to do lists that we have, and we make sure that they get on the calendar. And just taking that one hour a week to really focus on that resource that is time has made a huge difference.
Mahanz Sharif 22:58
Amazing that that just that sounds like that is the thing that we all need to do more of but when we're especially towards the beginning, or the first few years of our business, that's exactly the hardest thing to do. Because you feel like you shouldn't be doing the other things. It's like you're not actually turning the wheels in your business and you're stopping. And I think that's just it's that whole mindset and also doing it to see then the results and how you feel more clarity, more focus and more drive. Just being more prepared and planned on where it is you're trying to go and how you're going to get there. You know, in a nutshell, that has to keep moving and check and we need to keep checking in on it. But day to day, we don't simply don't have that time or focus and what you're doing is amazing because that is bringing that side in, like almost like a non negotiable isn't it that you do just do it.
Susan Finn 23:54
And we're how we hold each other right? Like if somebody hasn't shown up, we're like you okay, what's going on? Did you didn't Oh, no, no, don't worry, I did my CEO hour on my own. I just needed I had a meet with a client. The other thing we do is look at our 12 week goals, once once a quarter looking at the 12 week goals, which is helpful for me because I really love pushing the buttons and doing the things and making the things pretty, but this helps me think out. Alright, well, if I'm committed to a webinar a month, who do I have for the next three months, right? And if I'm committed to my podcast and this Youtube series, then how am I filling that up? And how do the things get done? So so that
Mahanz Sharif 24:35
yeah, so important.
Susan Finn 24:37
It is. This has been amazing. I know that we have to start wrapping up, we each have calls to go on. Is there anything else you would want somebody to have like, Okay, we talked for this long? This is what I want you to remember what's the takeaway you want them to remember?
Mahanz Sharif 24:53
Okay, so I think there's three things that come to mind and I think it's really important when we're managing art. Time to think about what our daily schedule looks like, you know, what is that? How do we keep it manageable? And how do we make sure that all the things we want to do like that are on our to do list are actually implemented in action. So there's a huge power in that daily schedule. And for me, that's all about mastering your minutes and really focusing in on what it is that you're going to be working on. And secondly, there's building your business in a way that is sustainable. So that is sustainable, as a business model. But it's also sustainable in the sense that you are the solopreneur. So you are you need it to be sustainable for you, your energy, your time, everything needs to be built in a certain way. So that feels very much in alignment. And number three is having aligned support you mean, you just touched on it there, Susan, you have a an amazing group of people who you are held, who are holding each other accountable and supporting each other. And having the right kind of support and the people around you can make be the difference between you taking consistent action, and staying on top of your game. And just being mediocre, you know, really, we don't want to be are absolutely passionate about what we do helping serving other people making a difference. So we want to be focusing on being able to do more of that. But without giving up any more time or energy. And by really balancing that in a way that it speaks to us and grows that business that really does feel good to us. So I think that's my main takeaways for today.
Susan Finn 26:41
That was brilliant. Thank you. I'm going to make sure to put that in the show notes here. I'll put I'm going to just transcribe them exactly. As you said them, they were so good. And I put a link in I'll put it in the show notes, too. I mean, you so much available on your site, I put a link into your site, and you call it like a vault. There's just like so many free opportunities to learn from you to engage with you to get on a call won't get on a call with you and to just consume what you have. But then when you're ready to make that dive, I would say into really knowing what you're doing every minute. Yeah, right. Get on that call work with Manasa. And make sure that you're doing the things that you need to do a for yourself is titles but also so that you can continue to show up for the people who need you. Right?
Mahanz Sharif 27:36
Absolutely. Sent out so perfectly. Absolutely. Stay and your power isn't just up level but without sacrificing or compromising anything.
Susan Finn 27:48
That is right. Rise Above noise you guys. Man, thank you so much for being my guest. Again, Susan. A. I'm looking forward to our next time talking together.
Mahanz Sharif 27:57
Oh, it's been a pleasure. Thanks, Susan.
Susan Finn 28:02
There you have it, as I write didn't you get so many good insights from this. I loved how Manasse pointed out that by creating and keeping to a daily schedule. We we keep things more manageable, right? Like I love that she said the power of the day, or of the daily is in mastering our minutes. I put that on a sticky note, I have it on my monitor now. The power of the daily is mastering our minutes I love that. She tells us that the goal for all of us is to build a business as a sustainable model that we as entrepreneurs as solopreneurs. So many of us are that we can manage, not to take on too much and to manage those minutes. And this is what I really loved especially because of the rise above night noise community is so supportive. I love that she says that it's so very important to find our life support systems, it's the people around us that are going to make the difference between being mediocre and being amazing. I think you can see that our rise above noise community is different, right? We're we're we're changing how service professionals how transformation creators show up in our marketing so that we can make a real difference in our world. And now more than ever, and I do say this every week because I I really truly mean it. Now more than ever. Our world needs our transformation creators to be successful. To show up in service and to make a real difference in our world. I want to thank you for joining us today. I look forward to seeing you in the rise above noise commute Eddie, and I do look forward to sharing our next rise above the noise spotlight. I hope you'll join us
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
