Welcome back to insta versus reality, I'd like to start off by saying that I think that I'm pretty candid about what goes on in my business life in my Instagram stories. So if you ever sit and just watch my Instagram Stories, then I think you're gonna get a really kind of raw and honest view of how I actually go about my daily life because I like to just kind of show the good bit, I don't like to just straight up a bit. So let's share the bad bits too. But these past couple of weeks has been really hard. So just for a little bit of context, I'm recording this, and it is the end of Easter holidays.
So over Easter holidays, we are supposed to stop working as a company and is it my company ethos to be able to close down for four weeks in the summer, closed down for two weeks at Easter and closed down for three weeks at Christmas. And I've always managed to do it before but this Easter was just so chaotic. So we got the new office space, which I'm recording in right now. I set up the whole content creation space, and I'm setting the podcast area surrounded by different coloured curtains trying to record a podcast for you. While staring at myself in the face in a camera to watch myself record, talk about narcissism. But here we go, this is what Monday marketing is. Now beer is sat in a corner of your own space surrounded by curtains watching yourself, talk about yourself into a camera. I'm sure other ways of marketing are available and do work. But this is the way that it's working for me.
And I'll start at the end of the two weeks, where I found myself dropping to my knees, clutching the knees of my PA and weeping into her skirt. She had gone away to Bali for two weeks. Now. My pa Emma is fantastic. And sometimes you don't really appreciate someone until they go away and leave you and go away to Bali. She had a great time. And she left me with an office to do now Mr. If you're listening don't feel bad. There were a whole bunch of other people here. But I have this brand new office space that I'm sitting in right now. But we do not have any internet. We barely have electricity and I don't know who's paying for the water. So that's about how she runs my life. So I guess the reality of all of the things coming together is that I'm very good at looking at things and thinking about things and having a plan for things. But Emma was just so glorious just putting all those plans into action and actually making them be a thing.
For example, I'm still waiting for the internet. I haven't signed up to my electricity yet and I don't know who's paying for the water. Now before Emma went away, she sent me a text saying make sure you text this person the address of the new office. And I was like okay, cool. Bye. Have a lovely, lovely holiday. I didn't text that person. And when she came back she was like I wept. I wept at her feet. She brought me Prosecco and I worked at her feet. And she said did you don't get your utility sorted? No, you weren't here. I don't know how to do it did it? She was like But I texted you the person of the name to ring and basically all I needed to do was given the given the address and it would have all been sorted out. Now we sat here about three weeks later on. Still with no electricity. Well, I mean it works but I'm just not sure I'm paying for it yet. You know that kind of in between stays Definitely not go into debt. And like I said, I don't know who's paying for water.
So we can all look good on the outside of Instagram, but sometimes on the inside, like, I feel like actually this is just generally as business owners, and I don't, I'd like to think it's not just me if it is just me then clearly, I'm a being a bit of a dunce. But like, I am so good at business, like I'm so good at running a business during the life of business and thinking about all the things that my clients need, and thinking about all the things that I need like in advance, but I am terrible at running my own life. I just can't do it. I can't figure out utilities. And I spent the whole of the second week of the Easter holidays, snuggling up under my laundry because I didn't put my laundry away. Like there was a whole load of laundry in the laundry washing machine for a week. Oh, a sub caveat.
I didn't know the difference between a washing machine and a dishwasher until I was about 21. No, because I didn't know what they differently did. But I just didn't know which names was which I used to call the dishwasher, the washing machine, and the washing machine the washer. And now I realise the clue is in dish washer. Anywho my laundry was sat in the practicing laundry, sat in the washing machine wet for a week, I had a pile of laundry on my bed. Because I read on a tick tock that if you put your like hashtag life hack, if you put your laundry on your bed, then you'll put it away before you go to sleep like it will force you to actually do that thing that you need to do to put your laundry away. But the reality is, I find it actually rather comfy to sleep underneath it. So I put my sleep under my duvet like clean clothes on the top of my duvet. And it's like an extra blanket. Like it's very cosy.
And I don't know about you, but sometimes, like it kind of threw me off because if I sleep with to do vase, I really don't wake up. If I'm really really snuggled in. I don't wake up so I spent the whole week lying under laundry. Not sure what utilities to book in and over sleeping because I was so so cosy in my bed. Whilst knowing that every single day I had to come to my new office and paint it.
Inge, future Inge, if you're listening to this, don't ever buy an office that is a dark colour, and not book a painter. Like this office. It was dark green. And I did not book in anyone to paint it. I was like, Yeah, it'd be fun. I can paint that easy. Turns out, it's actually really, really hard to paint white over dark green. One of my followers texted me saying that you're supposed to do a complimentary, like the opposite colour of the colour wheel first, or like a lighter complimentary colour to then be able to do the white. Anyway, is not all done it genuinely it took about seven coats, and about a team of like, friends, family, staff, everyone came in, everyone got pissed off with it after I remember one time actually.
So we were painting me and Anna, who is like our marketing executive, we were painting. We've been here all day, and she was absolutely knackered, but then I was like, oh, fuck, I'm supposed to be going to a doctor's appointment, which again, I totally forgot about because I can't do life, made the doctor's appointment by the skin of my teeth. And I ended up there for three hours instead of it just being like a checkup for 20 years. It was like a foot one. Like I've got a crappy dodgy ankle and it needs to be seen too. So they wanted to manipulate it and stuff. And I got back to the office, open the door. And I was like yeah, sure. You know, I'll stay I'll paint while you're away at the doctor's. I was like, here's the key. Like, if you want to go home, you just go home and I'll come pick up the key from you. She was like no, no, it'd be fine. Anyway, I came back in I opened the door. And within seconds she was like going home now. Like a flat faced stern face stared at me face. I'm going home now. I was like, okay, she and all of us got so frustrated.
So if you're gonna learn anything from me, please be. Please book in a paint is not worth your time to paint, paint, paint, paint, paint and like painting takes a lot longer than you think it's going to take. I always think, I think to myself, like I would be a great painter. I feel like hmm. And now I'm sitting here like, what's the word reminiscing over the past? thinking thinking, Oh, actually, it's quite calming, quite soothing. I could be a great pain to one day. But no, it's not. Like it's actually not something that I enjoy. So please, just just in the future, if I, you know, I'm planning getting more offices around the country, like just remind me not to paint.
Occasionally, some of the new neighbors from my block came in to, like, introduce themselves. You know, what do you do to deter? How are you? I was really freaking hard to paint why I've worked out green, without giving them any context, that was my first opening line. Opening line, to at least three of the local business owners. Did you know it's hard to paint white or dark green. And if anyone does come to visit us in clue hub in Cambridge, there are still green patches, I have left a whole area green is too high for any of us to reach. And there's like a section of the corridor that definitely needs a whole new coat.
But I'm going to call it a wellness activity, I've decided that you know how, like, you have this sort of responsibility to your employees, if you own a business, and your responsibility is that you need to make sure that they're getting up from their desk every so often stretching their legs, I have found two brilliant activities for that. The first is painting. The second is finishing off the Ikea furniture. So the IKEA Vantage is put together. But you know, when you put together and you know that you just need to screw the screws in more than you have done. And now like around I can, I can see the screws that need to be screwed in. So anytime anyone wants a break, you come work for me, you know, I do include your well being in our business decision making. And I've got plenty of activities for you to do, including painting a wall in the office. If you have a high ladder, like it's bonus, bring it with you. And the second thing is finishing off Ikea furniture. I don't know I was I saw this picture of an office, a company would gone bust. And they were getting rid of loads of office furniture.
And I was just scrolling through trying to find cheap office furniture. And they had like hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of office chairs. And you know what my first thought was not Oh, look, loads of free office chairs I could buy my first thought was What idiot put all that together. That took so much time. I think we need to sometimes remember that. Our time is an asset, you know? Yeah, you can choose to do painting. But all of that week, I could have had such more of a productive week, if I had used the time to do sales calls and do my business, do business things or actually probably take time off around this back and full circle that was actually supposed to be the time when I was taking time off work to try and recoup and re gather before I really go again.
Because we've got a really, really, really busy few months, we are doing a shit tonne of filming. In clue we have gone from one group and clue to four groups includes so I have quadrupled our workload. They're going, oh my god, I don't know why this stuff. But when they i feel like I breaststroke a lot of the time like you know how you can breaststroke and just push the activities back like I'll do the word planning and selling. Someone else is going to help me with that. Well, hopefully Emma otherwise I will weep at her feet again. I was seriously we have got a really, really really busy few months coming up and I really wish I'd properly taken that time off. So if you are thinking like it's all very well and good, you know how on Instagram, you could be like, Oh, look at me, I've got an office like Yars but the reality is that it takes a long time to end a lot of money to put it together. It's just like when you buy a house and you know you buy a house and you're like, I've got all this new furniture and stuff and edited it out.
You know you got to get it out nicely. And so I got all the new furniture and I kid it out nicely. You know, I spent a good 10 grand last few weeks, various different things one of the most expensive being like the fit of the office and and then away into qt quality discounts. By the way, that's what it is called quality discounts. It's like Woolworths, the new Woolworths and had to buy Ben, because I totally forgot to buy Ben. I want to, I don't want to spend more than 399 or Ben, you know, you know, you use just like, it's the same thing. I know. It's the same thing when you get a new house, like you spend so much money on fitting the house out that then you forget about things like the bin, or the cutlery, or mugs, or bin bags, toilet roll, cleaning equipment, tea towels. You know, I give a budget for the whole office and they're like, fuck 399 That's all I want to spend on a bin. And I got crossed, because the bin that I wanted was 499 Oh, God, feeling a little bit delirious from the activities of the past couple of weeks, but we roll we roll we keep going. We keep going. The cool thing though, is that this office that I'm in I've taken over what is a shop really?
So it's like a shop with a front window and everything. But it used to be a Skin Clinic like a botox place. And I have found three packs of Botox under the sink. No, are you thinking? No, I'm not that silly to use it. But it did cross my mind. No, no, no, I'm joking. I have though, however, found a whole bunch of needles. So if anyone would like any No, I'm not. No. I was about to shout out. If anyone wants any out of date and unrefrigerated Botox you come my way. But seriously, no, I'm not going to be given that out. Full disclosure, legal, legal, legal, it's Nope, you cannot come to me for that. I I get carried away with my own discussions with myself. And whilst I'm staring at myself, recording myself about myself, looking at myself making a podcast about myself.
You know, it's hilarious. So yeah, it's been a really, really, really intense and turns a couple of weeks. The reality is that I will throw money at anyone to do the next office instead of doing it myself. I must have made about seven trips to IKEA life hack that isn't I've got a life hack for you that isn't sleep. That isn't to put your laundry on your bed because you'll make you put it away because you don't like me, just I'll just sleep under it. My life hack is to go to Ikea at nighttime. Has anyone ever been to IKEA at nighttime? That place doesn't shut until nine o'clock. Oh my god, like you can sit on the furniture in the evening. You can look at the layouts properly in the evening. It is so nice to go to IKEA in the evening. So life might be like a real life hack. go to IKEA in the evening. Also get an Ikea family card because you get discounts because they don't do business discounts. I'm learning so much about business. I feel like after you know how many years I've been in business.
16 years I've been obviously 16 years of business. I'm finally learning what real business ownership is like, by putting money down on a fixed asset. It's not even asset fixed liability. In other words, I don't know. Anyway, don't forget that.
If you'd like me to answer any of your anonymous questions, there is an anonymous question form link HERE. There'll be a link in there that has an anonymous form because there is no space for you to put your name in. So I do not know who fills in that form. But you could ask me any questions and I will answer you. Honestly, truthfully and with the real rawness of the podcast of is it static versus reality, the anonymous question episodes come out every Sunday. Any further information head over to my instagram, IngeHunter and drop a DM.
So until next time, Inge x
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