Episode #114 Why Managing Personal Stress is Vital for Bookkeeping Business Health

For this exciting episode of The Bookkeepers Voice' as we welcome back the owner and founder of this very podcast, The Savvy Bookkeeper and Off the Hook Bookkeeping – Amy Hooke! 

Tune in for the beginning of a three part Podcast Series that will focus on Managing Stress. Over the next three episodes, Amy will be interviewing a few members of the Savvy team to chat about stress and how it can affect our bookkeeping businesses, our workplace and our lives in general. 

In this episode, Amy will be interviewing our lovely Client Relationship Manager Angie Martin who many of you already know from past podcast episodes.

Key Takeaway: “Your energy is like a budget – you can spend all you want but eventually you need to replenish your ‘account’ to keep you going.”

Podcast Info

Episode: #114

Series: General

Host: Amy Hooke

Guest speaker: Angie Martin

Topic: Why Managing Personal Stress is Vital for Bookkeeping Business Health

Read transcript

Summary Keywords: bookkeeping business, stress management, stress management techniques, personal triggers to stress, importance of stress management, business owner

 

The importance of managing personal stress for the wellbeing of your bookkeeping business

 

Amy Hooke  0:05 

Hey guys, welcome to another episode of The bookkeepers voice. Thank you for joining us today. I'm Amy Hooke, and I'm the owner of the savvy bookkeeper, the founder of disagreeable Kiba and offer bookkeeping. And I'm also the founder of this podcast. And obviously, I don't even know how to introduce myself anymore, because I haven't been the host for a while. So yeah, so obviously, you haven't seen me for a little while, except for the couple of interviews that I've done with Angie, to Angie's with me today as well.

 

Angie Martin  0:39 

Hi, guys.

 

Amy Hooke  0:42 

So what we're going to be doing is we're going to be doing free episodes, what I'm going to be hosting for three episodes. So today, I'm going to be with Angie. And we're going to be talking about our personal managing your personal stress in business. And then next week, I'm going to be having Meyer along we're going to talk about the stress in the workflow, you know, this and how you can improve that. And then I'm going to have Sharon, our lovely senior bookkeeper, we're going to talk about bookkeeping stress as it relates to clients and actually do managing deadlines and the bookkeeping work and that kind of thing. Yeah, so today, we're gonna talk about how your personal stress actually affects you in your business. And in the workplace, and just, you know, it can flow out to your life in general. So Angie is with me today, as you know, she normally hosts the podcast, but today she's with me as an employee of the savvy bookkeepers. She's a client relationship manager. Yeah. Yeah, it's obviously you know, her from the other episodes. And if you're a savvy member, you'll get to see Angie all the time, Facebook lives and our savvy groups and that kind of thing as well. So yeah, so that's really cool. I'm looking forward to chatting about this topic with you, Angie.

How to recognise your personal triggers to stress

 

Angie Martin  1:56 

Yeah. I'm really excited. We've been talking about stress for a little while now within the membership. And it's just so interesting how stress and burnout can affect and come across in different ways. And we don't even notice it's happening until it's happening. And bookkeepers I think are just notorious for it, because we put everyone first and then we forget about ourselves.

 

So I'm really excited about this. This episode.

 

Amy Hooke  2:28 

Yes, definitely. Me too. That's gonna be good. Yeah, so basically, yeah, well, so I guess the first thing you want to do this morning was just share a little bit about how I felt this morning thinking about doing a podcast about stress. So I was about to start chatting to Angie about this before we did the episode. And I thought, you know what, let's turn the microphone on. And let you guys hear what I was gonna say to him too, because I think it's actually important. And it's part of the journey, because, you know, in today's episode, I'm just gonna kind of wade through my own personal story of stress, because I think that you will be able to see yourself in that story. So I'm sure we've all had these days. But this morning, I had one of those days where I was just like, oh, like, I didn't get a good sleep. And I was like, I just I don't know, if I want to do a podcast on stress. Because I'm not a psychologist, I'm definitely not an expert on stress. You know, as as, you know, obviously, as you know, I just shared with you that I was, I didn't get a good sleep last night, because I have a three year old who wasn't well, and all that sort of stuff. So, you know, real life is real life. And I'm obviously a real person. And so I was, yeah, like, I just thought, who am I to talk about stress? And so I got stressed about that. And, you know, could we do a different topic or something like that. And then I realised, hang on a second. This isn't about me, this is like, this is about you guys. And, you know, it's ridiculous for me to think that some of the things that I could share with you about my journey of stress, you know, I'm not obviously I'm not a doctor, or, you know, giving medical advice, but I don't need to, you know, it's true. You know, one of the great things about the bookkeeping community is that we share with each other and we share our stories and, you know, get to talk about things that happen and, you know, it's, it's good for, you know, us as, you know, the staff at savvy to be able to show you that, you know, we're not perfect, we do get stressed, but we do as well, you know, obviously we've had to talk about it within the team during COVID. There was you know, obviously that was a stressful time. So, yeah, I just kind of thought, yeah, you know, I can just share my story and I've got a pretty cool little checklist that was, you know, that I discovered myself A couple of years ago, so I'll just kind of, I'll go through and talk a little bit about that. So, and then yeah,

 

Angie Martin  5:07 

I love it. I love that. It's actually, I woke up this morning as well. And I had a feeling I actually checked in with you before we started to do it. And I was like, hey, just checking to make sure we're still doing the podcast today. Yeah. And

 

Amy Hooke  5:24 

child seek or I'm seeing gastro? But um, yeah, anyway, like,

 

Angie Martin  5:32 

it's one of those things. You know, we talk about so many topics on this podcast. And by no means are we experts. And I'm gonna put out there as well. You know, I'm notorious for burnout to the point that we now have a system in place to make sure I don't burn out

 

Amy Hooke  5:49 

an app. Yeah.

 

Angie Martin  5:51 

Actually make myself have days off. And it's one of those things that we are experts, but we are aware of how this affects ourselves in our community. That so we just want, you know, the bookkeepers voice is about bringing a voice to bookkeepers. So it's cumulative. Right?

 

The importance of stress management for your business

 

Amy Hooke  6:09 

Exactly. So true. Yeah, exactly. And this, obviously, there's experts out there and I did an interview with Tim Hartman. And he's, he's a bookkeeper. And he does a lot of work with beyondblue. And they have resources that you can look at, and that kind of thing. But basically, like, so. It's really funny, but the way that I found out that I was stressed, wasn't, it wasn't like, one day, I'm like, Oh, I'm stressed. And the reason that it wasn't that is because I'm not really one of those people that's like, really in touch with my body. So like, I don't know, if you can relate to this, and you maybe or maybe not, but you know, I'm like, I'm in my head a lot. You know, I'm always thinking of things. Like, I'm thinking of new ideas, and I'm on my computer all day. And, you know, I have a tendency to kind of not really notice what's going on, you know, from here, down and kind of thing so I can easily work a whole day and forget to eat my lunch.

 

Angie Martin  7:13 

Yeah. How you actually do that?

 

Amy Hooke  7:17 

Yeah, I don't know, I actually go by the clock. I couldn't understand my wife. My husband, Willie might say, Are you hungry? And he'd say, what time is it? And I'm like, What do you mean? Like, do you feel hungry? And he's like, Is it 12? Like, it's got to be. Right? So. So for me, part of my own personal journey has been about learning to listen to my body, what is my body saying, and you know, because what happens is when, when you're stressed, and you ignore that stress for a very long time, you get so used to it, that you don't actually kind of really necessarily know that it's even there. So I did not know that I was stressed. I knew there was something wrong. But I didn't know what it was, it was kind of like a, I don't know, like a, just that, like, you know that when you know when the TV goes fuzzy. It's like that grey, buzzy background noise. That's just crowd noise. But it's one of those things that you don't really know it's there until when it's gone. You're like, wow, it's really this. So for me, I needed to, it was actually a questionnaire that I came across. So I had started doing a business coaching course. And about probably about three years ago. And yeah, and so I started doing this course it was just, it was just before I started savvy. So obviously, I was already doing the savvy work, but it was just before savvy became known as savvy. So I was around 2018. And I was doing this course. And I found this, this questionnaire was actually part of the course that I was doing. And I mean, I can share it with you today. And we will actually include a link for it stop property of the course that I was doing. It's actually it's a it's actually a scale that's used by psychologists. So it was developed by a little Holmes and Ray. It's called the Holmes and Ray stress test. So it's something that's publicly available. So what we did was we just, um, yeah, we've got it there as a little PDF that you can

 

Angie Martin  9:31 

download made it savvy, and so you'll actually be able to download it in the description.

 

Amy Hooke  9:36 

Exactly. So yeah, so I recommend Have a look at this stress test. Because so when I found this test, like all it is, is a list. It's like a list of like, let's say, like, I'm just gonna guess off the top of my head like maybe 35 or 40 items. And each item has a score next to it and all you do for the test is you just go through the list and you circled ones that apply. And then you add up the score. And then it's got like a little scale at the bottom. So it's got everything from like death of a spouse at 100. All the way through to a minor violation of the law at 11. So, so apparently, if you like, you know, that's, I guess that's like a speeding fine. So you go through a red light or something that's going to bring some stress into your life, because you're going to have to pay the bill and things like that. So obviously, you know, if someone close to you get sick, or you're going through a divorce, or even pregnancies on the list that I'm giving a score, 40, personal injury and illness. changing jobs is on the list. And you sort of work your way through here changing responsibilities at work. So there's all these things on that list that I was like, I didn't even think of any of these things. And I circled quite a few things on the list. And I can't remember. Like, I'm just looking at it now. But I'm just looking at it. Yeah, like even so moving house, changing your work hours, like changing your recreation, or changing your eating habits. It's even got vacation on there, obviously American, but going on holiday, actually gives you a score of 13. So because you've got to organise the holiday, and you got to still be stressful, like trying? Oh, actually, yeah, like trying to make sure you get to the planes on time and stuff is stressful. So there's all these little things that, you know, I was not even, like they weren't even on my radar. And I feel that the this thing, and I think my score was like 400 or something. And so here's the scale. 300 Plus is a high risk of stress. Whereas 150, low risk, like under 150 is a lower risk. So you want to have a score less than 150. So I highly recommend doing this. Because when I saw that, I was like, full 100. And so we had to, as part of the course we had to like write a little bit about it. And we had to like we didn't have to give them the response to the test. But we had to tell them our score and like analyse our ourself. And yeah, my teacher was like, I'm a little bit worried. But the funniest thing was I didn't feel stressed. And I was like, but but I did. It's just that I didn't. I don't know, like, maybe I didn't realise it. I do realise that that feeling that I had was stressed. So looking at that score was like, Whoa, like, I need to do something about this. And so yeah, like I need to make some changes. And obviously looking back, it's like, well, no one would have guessed that I was stressed. Like I was working 60 hours a week and it was really things going on. And I just had a you know, I had a five month old baby and all this like, yep.

 

Angie Martin  12:56 

Life.

 

Amy Hooke  12:59 

But sometimes it's not obvious to us, you

 

Angie Martin  13:00 

know, and especially bookkeeping, like bookkeeping, there's constant which you're going to talk with Sharon a bit more. There's constant and consistent, like our work is never done as a keeper, because it's just an ongoing cycle. There's always deadlines. There's always things happening with clients. There's always a constant amount of some stress in a work day

 

Amy Hooke  13:23 

interruptions when you're saying that interruptions are stressful. Yeah. And we get them all the time. Yeah,

 

Angie Martin  13:30 

also, you're all is I think what happens with this industry is everyone gets used to having a certain level of stress as the norm. Great, then we don't recognise when it gets worse, because we're just used to having that little bit of stress lights up. Yeah, I actually looked up and I was trying to do some research for this whole series to see if it was worth doing. And I actually found some stats that are pretty, pretty crazy. Now this is one of the stats is for accountants because I couldn't find the bookkeeping stop, but still, it's still within the industry. So 32% of accountants feel consistently stressed 17% have been forced to take time off due to stress 42% consider resigning from jobs because we're too stressed out from work. Yeah, and the ongoing deadlines that never end deadlines. Yep, yep. 40% have looked for a job elsewhere to try and reduce their stress, which you can do if you own your own business they're looking for a job elsewhere is looking on seek and looking to shut your own business.

 

Amy Hooke  14:47 

Yeah. Oh my gosh, during the stress of coding.

 

Angie Martin  14:51 

I wasn't sure if you wanted to.

 

Amy Hooke  14:53 

Yeah, I was gonna say yes, yeah, that's right. Yeah, I thought I thought how nice would it be just to work for someone else and not have to worry about it. But as you can see from from the steps of it, it probably wouldn't exempt me from stress, just a different type of stress.

 

Angie Martin  15:12 

No boy, and 14% have handed in their notice due to stress. So 14% of like accountants and bookkeepers, people in our industry resigned or even retire, because of the stress that comes with the job. Yeah. Which is crazy.

 

Amy Hooke  15:36 

Yeah, that's right. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, like, I mean, yeah, those stats that you got, obviously talked about, you know, these accountants not feeling supported. And they're under the pressure of realistic expectations from managers. And I was thinking, that's so funny, because as business owners, we don't have a manager, we've got many managers, because we've got all of our clients with all of their demands for me to the individual clients. So it's sort of like it's different. But it's Yeah, it's like, it's kind of on a different level,

 

Angie Martin  16:12 

it is a different level. And it's one of those things that, you know, the the concept of the clients always right, well, you only ever have clients, and they think of themselves as well as your boss or manager, it can be very difficult to recognise how much stress that can cause. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

 

Amy Hooke  16:32 

Yeah, that's right. Exactly. And I think because, I mean, yeah, you know, for those, for those of you who are, who are similar to me, in that you have that, that disconnect from, you know, with paying attention to what's going on in your body, like, I think, I mean, it kind of makes sense that, you know, when you're working so hard, and you're fixated on getting an outcome, or making people happy, and or making, you know, having to make money and all of these different things, that all of a sudden, like, you know, time can sort of feel like it goes really fast. And then all of a sudden, you wake up and you're like, oh, wow, like I'm 20 kilos overweight, or, you know, I have a drinking problem, or, you know, my house is really messy, or, you know, my, my relationships are a mess, or whatever, you know, you can kind of like you, you can actually sort of become a bit detached from kind of all of these different things that are going on around you. And so it's not really a surprise that when people get stressed, like, obviously, there's the physical toll of stress on your immune system. And, you know, like, yeah, like on your digestive system, and all that sort of stuff. Like it's all very interrelated. And so it's not really a surprise that, you know, all of those things kind of go out of whack. And it's also not a surprise, and it's so cliche, like you always hear like, Oh, you know, the solution to stress is just like, do so maybe strive, maybe have a have a healthy diet, a balanced diet, and what's the other one, they say meditate? And, you know, like, it's always the same kind of advice, but I guess, you know, maybe there's a reason for that. It's always

 

Angie Martin  18:15 

the same kind of advice, but my issue with it is because I'm, you know, I'm chronically stressed. It's just, it's a thing. It's a thing that I'm aware of, and it's a thing that I'm working on. Um, but it's always presented in the same way. Where if something, you know, like when I get stressed, typically, I end up losing gross amounts of weight, not because I stopped eating, that's just how my body reacts to stress. Yeah, where I might not notice until a friend sees me and they go, Oh, my God, what is wrong with you? Yeah. It's one of those things. And you, you, it's so easy, and I know when I'm stressed, I know when I'm getting dangerously near burnout. But instead of you where you just sometimes aren't aware, I'm very aware, but I just keep going because I'm so

 

Amy Hooke  19:14 

yeah. The opposite in some way because, yeah, and like it's also same result. It's the same. That's right. And so yeah, it was funny when we got together as a team like after, you know, you said to me that you were you know, that you'd experienced like a mini burnout and all that sort of stuff and we talked about the different ways that we cope with stress and so for you You're You said you're like you like a duck mom on the surface, but paddling like crazy underneath like you like to just go in random moment. And, and I disappear. Yeah, I just go Mia, but I don't even realise that I've gone Mia like sometimes like yeah, you know, sometimes you guys will tell me like oh, yeah, like you disappear for a couple of weeks. Like And then just reappear like oh, like, oh, let's do this. Yeah, that's like, Oh yeah, like I just kind of like I really need to, you know, sort of switch off and just go into my own like head for a while and re process everything. So the thing you know, and I think, you know,

 

Angie Martin  20:20 

it's okay, well, it's not okay. But it's okay to understand that in this industry, chronic stress is typical. I think it's understanding and realising your symptoms of it, so that you can try and go, Okay, these levels are going a bit dangerous, I need to do something just to change. And that could be, you know, I had a whole heap of stuff I had to do on the weekend. And yesterday, I was working outside enjoying the sun. And then I just kind of went, you know what, I'm just, I'm not doing this anymore than I did nothing the rest of the night. And it's getting to the point that as a business owner and a bookkeeper, you can't feel guilty about doing that. Now, sometimes just going, you know what, I'm just not going to work today, or work this weekend, or, you know, I'm just going to go for a walk. And yeah, not feel guilty about not doing client work.

 

Amy Hooke  21:23 

That's right. Yeah, exactly. And you mentioned before you said something about going I said all that the cliche advice is just don't be stressed. And it's like, it's so strange. Like with depression, you know, people yes. Just Cheer up, just be happy. And, you know, the even more frustrating about the Just don't be stressed advice. Is that, like, on some level, it's true. Like it, but it's not. It's not as easy like it's oversimplified. Yes. So I think like, yeah, like what I'm, because I'm thinking about this time, like, some of you guys probably remember Renee, who worked for us for a little while. She was like it, like an angel that just came in. And she's, yeah, she's so lovely. And she just came at the right time. You know, as she came in, she was always going to be just temporarily just helping me rearrange some things in the business. And yeah, so she, she basically did just that, but the thing that changed, like she actually changed my life like, in that we had this one simple conversation, and I'll never forget it. I said, she said, What is the worst, like, biggest challenge that's going on in your business right now. And I said, I work 60 hours a week. And I, this was not long after I'd done this test. And I knew I was stressed. I'm like, I work 60 hours a week. And I'm, I'm stuffed, but like, I just worked so much. And you know, I'm cranky. And the kids don't get to like have an enjoyable mom. Like, I'm always just like, oh, like, leave me alone.

 

Angie Martin  23:06 

I didn't even realise it.

 

Various stress management techniques to help you cope

 

Amy Hooke  23:07 

I didn't realise I was Yeah, I was really burnt out. And she said to me, Well, that's an easy one to fix. And I was like, really? And she said, Yeah, really easy. And I was like, oh, how do I fix it? And she goes, Okay, so what I want you to do this week is only work 30 hours. And I'm like, Are you serious? How do I do that? She's like, just I only work 30 hours. And I'm like, so simple. After 30 hours, just stop working and don't work anymore. And I'm like, Oh, you are a genius. Like, it was so obvious that I missed it anyway. So and she said, you know, we'll deal with everything else afterwards. And it was really cool. Like the end of that week. I was like, Hey, guys, like, and I'd shared openly with the team. I'm like, I've been working 60 hours a week. And I'm burnt out and I can't do it anymore. So from now on, I'm only going to be working 30 hours a week, Max. And yeah, I just did it that first week. And then I started to see all of these ways that I could just only work 30 hours a week like it was it was amazing. And so, yeah, but it also takes the right person to come along at the right time. Because I think if someone else had told me something like that, or being stressed, like sometimes it's just the right timing, you know, someone speaks that message and you're like, I'm ready to hit it. Like, yeah, you know, and she bought them and I'm ready to you know, she

 

Angie Martin  24:34 

also knew a lot about burnout as well in stress.

 

Amy Hooke  24:40 

because she'd been there.

 

Angie Martin  24:41 

Yeah, she she saw the signs she instantly saw what was happening. And it was it's one of those things and sometimes you need someone to actually have that outward view. And sometimes it's better not coming from a friend or family member. That's right. Sometimes it's

 

Amy Hooke  24:59 

She had actually been, she has a labour sheet. Yeah. She said, I've seen this happening with you. She said one day, I just turned up, and I just told all my stuff to go home. And she closed her business down. And she was in the fashion industry. And she was like, but she let it go too far. Like, everything just went too far. And yeah, so she said, I don't want to say that happened to you. And yeah, just like all Yes. And it's crazy, like

 

Angie Martin  25:27 

the simple like symptoms of stress is that your heart rate goes up, you start breathing faster and heavier, and your glucose in your blood actually increases?

 

Amy Hooke  25:39 

Yeah, I can feel my breathing, getting old tense to think, right.

 

Angie Martin  25:42 

It's actually for anyone who gets stressed and who are like becoming aware of it, hold your breath. It's actually something that happens all the time. And for bookkeepers that happens all the time, like, fast season, I'm pretty sure everyone that happens to 24 hours a day, because all we think is about all we need to get this done. Yeah. But what happens and like what is actually really scary about stress, and something that I really wanted to kind of bring up with people, because it's something I'm seeing really heavily since COVID, is that these changes in your body are causing like long term damages. And it's something that you and I talk about all the time, because we're because we're being open upfront, and you know, saying that, you know, we're stressed, and this is what's happening, it can actually really give you long term side effects like stress can affect the way that you have your physical growth, it can affect your immune system, which heavily affects me, it can affect your cellular cellular repair. So if you get hurt, you don't get you don't heal as quickly, because you're so stressed. It affects your digestion, which a lot of bookkeepers are having this issue lately I've been talking to them about like certain things are having real issues is their digestion or reproduction, which this is something one of my old bosses Actually, she I was hired. And within a week or so we started to talk about her reproduction issues, which was she after she's told me, she's like, I don't know why I just told you this. But she it been like four years. And then her husband changed jobs. And within a month of her husband changing jobs, they were pregnant.

 

Amy Hooke  27:37 

Wow.

 

Angie Martin  27:41 

And then also, the thing that I've been really noticing is the increased chance of chronic disease. So this can come from breathing issues, this can come from blood disorders, this can show up in just so many different areas, or make highs your body isn't functioning the way it should because we're stressed. Yeah. And we don't even know what but we have these outward symptoms. But don't recognise that it might be actually coupled with our stress, and many other things. Not just because of your stress, guys don't know. But you're stressed doesn't help.

 

Amy Hooke  28:21  

Kind of. Yeah, exactly. Yes, it's true.

 

Angie Martin  28:26 

It's It's crazy. How much it can affect. And like I know you and I we talked about. So I have some not full on blood disorders. But I have blood, not fun blood where it just doesn't do all the things that should for me. So sometimes when I'm stressed, it gets to the point that some days I physically can't get out of bed. And it's not because it's depression. It's not because of anything else. It's physically the thought of picking up my arm. Feels like the end of the world. Yeah. And typically it comes up and pops up worse when I'm super stressed.

 

Amy Hooke  29:05 

Yes. Yeah, that's right.

 

Angie Martin  29:07 

Yes. So it's it's just, it's crazy how this industry can cause medical things like that.

 

Amy Hooke  29:15 

Yeah, exactly.

 

Angie Martin  29:18 

Yeah. But the stress tests that we have. That's why it is good to at least help you recognise if you're stressed.

 

Amy Hooke  29:27 

Exactly. Yes, that's right. If you're not as cleaving to your body is a NGO who's you know, obviously, you've learned a lot about your own health through

 

Angie Martin  29:35 

15 years, guys, like – I've been aware of this for a while.

 

Amy Hooke  29:41 

That's right. Whereas I'm a bit of a newbie when it comes to that kind of thing. It's like, yeah, it's sort of like, you know, don't know where I heard about this, but I've been thinking about, like, like, like, think about your energy as like a budget, you know, like, you've already Got so much to give before you need to actually like replenish your, you know, replenish yourself. So like taking those breaks. And so like, I mean, some of the really simple strategies that I put in place are and you know, and he was very happy to hear this. And so as my as well as

 

Angie Martin  30:20 

to hear them

 

Amy Hooke  30:22 

was like, it's 12 o'clock, I gotta go have my lunch pass and as well, and so I used to eat my breakfast at four o'clock in the afternoon, and I would have passed out. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know how I did a there. But I actually by studying with smoothies, I transition myself back to a regular, like eating routine of having, you know, breakfast, lunch and dinner. You know, obviously, not everyone is as lucky to have be working at home with their husband, William now, you know, because I'm the one that's working more, and he's been watching the kids and that kind of thing. He cooks three meals every day. He's doing bacon and eggs for breakfast every morning. Because, you know, like I realised I was deficient in protein, like really severely deficient in protein because I've been doing a ketogenic diet. I did keto for a couple of years. I'll quickly share about that. Because actually, people it's a couple of people interviewed me about it. So I thought I'll just clear this up now. So I did try the keto diet. And not saying it was related to doing keto specifically, but I, I actually ended up very sick. And so for me, now it's just about a, like, a proper, like, balanced diet, like I think he can't really go wrong with, you know, just, you know, those, it's basically like half a plate of vegetables, a quarter of a plate of meat and a quarter plate of carbs. And like, you know, you, you know, and you got to have those healthy fats and stuff like that. But just like a normal balanced diet, and I don't banned myself from having anything because sometimes trying to figure out the food can be stressful as well. So slightly, but protein has been massive for me, like just having the protein in my diet, like, I didn't realise I've probably been protein deficient, like, maybe my whole life. So you know, there's just these little things that until you kind of become aware and stop and look at what's going on. So because for me, so I thought I was having like a heart condition or something like that I had extremely low blood pressure, I just had to go off and get all of these tests and things like that. And I was like this is, you know, this is crazy. Like, I'm like I was just about to turn 40. And I was like, I'm too young to have heart problems and all this sort of stuff. And it's like, Yeah, because you know, stress and not taking enough breaks, you know, sitting at the jar.

 

Angie Martin  32:58 

I've been being I've been harping on really hard about brakes, as well, because that's so important, especially on like, you know, the days and we both used to be quite bad at this, but we're both getting better at it on days that things just go wrong. Or you have a lot of work to do you know how we used to just keep going? Yeah, don't do that. Guys, stop and have a break, especially days that you have like the craziest, busiest days you actually stop and have like a 10 minute break and then come back, you will be so much more productive.

 

Amy Hooke  33:30 

Yeah. It's crazy how hard it is to do for like, people that are so like, used to just pushing through. It's really a habit. And you know, because I'm

 

Angie Martin  33:42 

a pusher through like, I push through. It's just this last year that I've actually opened up and been like, yeah, I'm sick today. I really shouldn't be working. Yeah. And I still sometimes do Oh, no, no, no, I'll do a couple hours, and then I'll take the day off. But it's one of those things bookkeepers push through. And also because they do it because we work from home as well. So yeah, I don't have to get pretty and you know, it's fine. If people can't see that I might have a bucket beside me while working or covered in, you know, climaxes everywhere. And yeah, no, actually, if you stop, the next time you work, you'll be so much more efficient.

 

Amy Hooke  34:25 

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So there's little things that you can do, but it just, you know, I think getting that reality check really helps.

 

And then, you know, obviously can speak to your doctor, if there's anything that you're actually concerned about, which, you know, and I think it's funny, like, I mean, Andy and I were the kind of people that like we had we kind of like had we burnt out, and then we kind of figured it out from there. But yeah, you don't have to do that. I'm just saying,

 

Angie Martin  34:55 

guys, it's not a good feeling.

 

Amy Hooke  34:57 

To get hit by a bus to know that it hurts. So like, you know, I think a lot of us are in the habit of, you know, waiting. Yeah, you know, it's the burnout, or the health scare or something like that, that causes us to pause. Whereas, you know, this is a good opportunity to just pause and reflect. So grab a copy of the, the, what do you call it? The survey? questionnaire? You know, it takes like, two minutes, just a really quick, I'm no straightening

 

Angie Martin  35:23 

and doing it today, because I actually haven't done it. I've been afraid to do it. Yeah, no, I'm going to do it today after this podcast, and then our membership group, I'm going to actually share with them my result. Yeah. Which will be interesting, because I really want us as a community and bookkeeping community for everyone to do this test, just so we're all aware that, yeah, no. And I love that you brought up Tim's podcast that you too did, it was a really great podcast. So what I'm going to do as well is in the description Notes for this episode. I'm going to have that podcast episode LinkedIn. So if anyone hasn't listened to that podcast episode, I highly suggest you to listen to it. It's a fantastic one.

 

Amy Hooke  36:14 

Yes, hes such a lovely guy, and he does great work would be on the blue. And he's a real advocate thought, you know, for looking after your mental health. In the work in the workplace, as business owners, it's really important. Um, yeah. So anyway, I'll be back next week. And I'm going to be catching up with Maya, and we're going to be talking about stress again, but we're going to be talking about stress. Like, you know, today, we kind of outlined some of the problems, but we're going to start to talk about some of the solutions, like practical things you can do in the business in order to relieve some of those stressors. So as Andy mentioned a little bit earlier, you know, the like, last time you know, we're bookkeepers just all disappear and you know, overwhelmed and things like that. I can tell you right now, we are not like that abas time. It's amazing. Our Yeah, that's right. And so I'm gonna I'll even get Sharon on the week after but you know, we we don't have best, best time to stress. Because we set up our processes. And we, you know, we leverage the software and the systems that we've got, so that we don't have to get to that.

The top stressors as a bookkeeper and business owner

 

Angie Martin  37:26 

Yeah. It's, it's awesome. Because it's, it's something that I've actually mentioned with you. I think I just shared it with you this past past season, where I've been noticing there's like a bass hangover. Every month after bass. Yeah. So because I work so heavily with our members on growing their businesses. I do notice more and more often that there is like, yeah, it's about two to three weeks, almost of BAS hangover. Yeah. Where nothing really happens in business growth. And once you've realised that as well, I've gotten people thinking about their stress levels during basketball, and because of that, we're like, I'm just so busy. I'm like, okay, so why are you dizzy? Are you like, what are you feeling? How are you feeling when you're stressed out? Like busy like that? Because sometimes people just go on busy. It's no, oh, I'm stressed. It's sometimes it's the same thing. So it's just really interesting how everyone thinks of it differently. So definitely tune into next week's episode, because it's going to be jam packed with like tips and tricks where today was just more of like, the conversation about stress.

 

Amy Hooke  38:37 

Yeah, uncovering the problem. Yeah, seeing what's going on. Yes. Well, that's great. Well, yeah, it's been fun to come back and do another podcast episode. And thanks for joining me, Angie. And, yeah, I'll let you wrap up. Because you're the one that doesn't ever wake me up. Well,

 

Angie Martin  38:58 

for everyone, once again, we will have in the resource list, the savvy stress test, we will have the link to beyond blue. And we also will have some blogs that Amy has created in the past about stress as well. She actually has some five steps to banishing invoicing stress forever as well, which is really handy. So we'll have that in there for you guys. And then make sure you tune in next week and the week after because it's going to be a really great episode of some tips and making sure that you know that you're not alone in this.

 

Amy Hooke  39:40 

And we have a solution for you as well.

 

Angie Martin  39:42 

Yes, exam

 

Amy Hooke  39:43 

on a piano fix your own personal stress, you might need to see a GP or something like that or you know, whatever, but we can help you with the business side of things. So we will do that.

 

Angie Martin  39:51 

Absolutely. So until next guys next time guys, as always stay safe, sane and savvy.

 

Amy Hooke  40:00 

See you later.