Episode 354: Habits and Behaviors Of Successful Pet Business Owners

Topics & Key Points

• The power of personal growth
• Finding inspiration from within
• Overcoming challenges as a single mom
• The power of neuroplasticity and habit stacking
• The connection between personal and business life

Timestamps

[00:00:00] The importance of habits and behaviors 

[00:01:02] Self-development and personal growth.

[00:04:10] Setting goals and taking action.

[00:09:47] The importance of childcare in a fitness routine.

[00:10:45] Building confidence and creating new behaviors.

[00:12:52] The power of grace and accountability.

[00:20:20] The importance of momentum.

[00:20:20] Celebrating wins.

[00:21:32] Making your business your first employee.

Notable Quotes

[00:05:59] “Your inspiration needs to come from within yourself, that burning fire inside so that when the winds come, your fire doesn’t die out. It spreads more like a brush or a wildfire.”

[00:04:52] “Your life’s journey is a lot of moving forward, falling forward, correcting and continuing. Fight for clarity and discovery of yourself and those around you.”

[00:11:29] “Neuroplasticity is fascinating—it’s like reshaping a dirt road into a highway in your brain. You can create new habits, behaviors, and patterns, making the difficult easier over time.”

Resources

• Podcast: Bella in Your Business: Pet Industry Business Podcast
• Join Mastermind
• Email Bella: bella@jumpconsulting.net
• Sign up for a 20 mins call 
• Book: Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

Connect with Bella

• Website
• Facebook
• YouTube

Did you love this episode?

If you liked this episode, please head on over to iTunes and leave a five-star rating and review. Every single review helps get this community bigger, stronger, and better. It gets other jumpers just like you into the community. Always remember when life gets down, always keep jumping.

Transcript

Welcome to another episode of Bella in your business your Business. My name is Bella Vasta. And today we’re gonna get a little personal. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about a topic. And obviously, you know what it is because you’ve seen the title of these habits and behaviors. And I’m gonna get pretty personal today in hopes of inspiring you to action. But first, before we get into it, I’d like to encourage you all to like, subscribe, and share the podcast with any of, your friends or colleagues that you think would benefit from it. And I also want to give a shout-out and say thank you to all of you who are binging on Bella right now I just got a message from someone who is at episode 250. And she’s working through all of them. And just like, you know, soaking it all up. So thank you. You all have been asking me a lot about how I stay positive. How do I accomplish things when, when life gets tough? How do I do all the things? Because yeah, it does seem like I am everywhere. And that’s a conversation to have for, you know, I have a really good team, I have good people around me. And we’ve done we’ve done episodes on that too.

But I’m gonna make this one even more personal. And I’m gonna let you into what’s been going on in my head, and my own personall life, again, in hopes that you can draw some parallels, and be inspired to just you know, make some, make some turns and make some tweaks as you see fit. And as you need. We all know that the more you grow personally, the more it affects the rest of your entire life, right? So if there are things that you’re struggling with in your business right now, and you can’t figure out what is going on, chances are it all starts from within you. And so if our focus is only on our business, where does it leave you personally and self-development-wise? What are you doing for self-development? And even more than that, I’m going to explain to you what self-development means in my own life. So it’s not just some shiny buzzword that we just throw around, because that’s not helpful to anyone. Now, a theme that’s been happening with me and a few of my friends, it’s been pretty powerful in the past two months. While discussing this with my inner circle, I realized we’ve even said, hey, it would be a great episode to talk about habits and behaviors. And I also want to make it mentioned that it can be applied to anything in life. And it’s really important to know what stage you are in your life, like do it mental inventory. I mean, some of us must be might be on the struggle bus right now, some might be dealing with depression, either chronic depression or acute depression, some of us might be very lonely, and then that itself, it just feels like death. Sometimes, isolation, it’s very easy to be isolated as a business owner. And it’s arguably one of the worst things that you could ever do. Because with isolation, all of those other things develop. So, in my own life, you all know that I got a divorce back in January 2020. And it was difficult. It was very difficult. I had to go through a lot of healing, and and then realignment. And then I finally entered into this blossoming phase where I felt like it was okay to dream again, it was okay to have a vision again, it was okay to see beyond just today. I felt like I was like this, this butterfly coming out of a cocoon. And things were being shattgereshatteredd in my life, things that I used to do, I just kind of didn’t have an interest in them anymore. And things that Peoplpeoplee I was hanging out with or activities I was doing, it just kind of lost interest because they weren’t pushing me forward. They weren’t doing the things I’m about to talk about today. And what I had to figure out is what I wanted, because that’s really important. I was on a coaching call on Friday, and there was a gal that was like, hey, I want to learn how to take my boarding from my house and make $200,000. And I was like, Well, why $200,000? What do you want for your life? Like, what’s the number like let’s reverse engineer this, we need a goal, we need a vision. And that’s the thing like you need to know what you want in order to go out and get it because it’s not going to just like fall in your lap. You have to be intentional about it. Then after I figured out what I wanted, I had to figure out was I ready to go for it. Was I ready to do what it took to get there and then also kind of reflect on the other times in my life when I’ve done it? What worked when I was trying to do it and what what didn’t work for me. So it’s being aware of yourself and how you work. My personpersonalpersonall journey has been a lot of moving forward, falling forward correcting and continuing fighting Looking for clarity and discovery of myself and those around me. But no matter what, like, I always have this burning desire that I want to be better. I always want to be the best version of myself. And for me first, now, when I’m unhealthy, I will say I want to be the best. And I mean, that’s just not really attainable, or achievable. Because I mean, if you like to zoom out, you know, there’s always gonna be people that are better than you, quote, unquote. But can you be the best version of yourself? What does the best version of yourself look like? I want you to think about that right? Now. pause it if you need to, What does your life look like? What does the best version of yourself look like? Because that version is going to be the version that we’re going to strive for your inspiration. You can find inspiration everywhere. But I want you to be careful about that outward inspiration is never long-term sustainable.

Your inspiration needs to come from within yourself, that burning fire inside so that when the winds come, your fire doesn’t die out, it spreads more like a brush or a wildfire. Whenever starting new things, it’s important to start with the behavior. I love Mel Robbins 54321. If you guys follow me on Instagram, Bella Vasta, you will have seen a video I made last week about this, I did not want to get up and go to the gym, it was the first time in like a month that I’d felt that way. And with the Mel Robbins 54321, it’s you count down 54321 You get up off the couch, you count down 54321 And you get in the car, you count down 54321 You drive to the gym, you get in the door, you put your stuff in the locker, you get up to the workout room, you know, and it’s just you keep 5432 and one yourself and do the next behavior. It really works. And she has a whole book on that too. So she has podcast too. She’s amazing. So if you’re looking for inspiration, that’s one of my many. For me, I wasn’t gonna give up on myself, it was the time I was ready for it, I want to to be better, and  I wanted to do better. And what I knew about this, what I wanted to do is I just wanted to start working out again. And it’s funny because, you know, they asked like, you know, what are your goals. And my goal is not a weight number. My goal is not inches, my goal is to make me uncomfortable so that I have to have a better mindset. And then let me feel the burn the next day or two days. And let me replace that with not Oh, God, this hurts, but I am strong. Or yeah, I did that. And it’s it’s more of a mind thing for me than it is a body thing. And I know that kind of probably sounds a little weird. So what I’m going to tell you about is my, you know, working out and and eating, eating better, I’m gonna say, but it’s not, this isn’t, this isn’t something that you have to do, I want to be clear on that, like, I’m not telling you that you have to do this, I’m saying that there is a mountain in your life that you that you want to get through. I know it, everybody has their mountain, or maybe even a hole that you need to crawl out of first, before you start climbing that mountain. Like I said, we have to know what stage of life we’re in. So for me, I wasn’t gonna set myself up for failure. And I’ve got about like 10 different things that I did that I want to, you know, tell you about. And keep in mind, like my stage of life I’m a single mom, and we share my daughter 5050. So I have a lot of times where I have my daughter. And then I have a lot of times where I don’t have my daughter. And it’s almost even tougher for me when I don’t have my daughter because there are no distractions. And so that’s where like the real discipline comes from. But the first thing I decided when I started on this is that consistency, at least 40% I could rely on. So I decided to get a trainer and make days of the week and times that I knew would work for me. I let my team know, hey, I’m gonna be out during these times. This is just what I’m doing. And I kind of have it stacked. And I’m gonna talk about that too.

I’ll save that for that section. But the second thing that I needed to solve is that I needed a solution for childcare. Because one of the stinking thoughts that I had was that Oh, well. You know, I can’t go to the gym when I have my daughter because there’s no childcare. Well find a gym that has childcare. And so there are days when I have Olivia for five days and saying that I can’t work out because of that I needed to solve that. I knew that that was a barrier and I needed to get excited about it. I also let myself believe that because I spend so much time making her special food, that I couldn’t do it for me, something that not a lot of you guys know is that my daughter has some feeding issues, that stem from being autistic. They also stem from being in the NICU and having ventilators and, and feeding tube shoved down her throat for the first six to nine months of her life. And so, feeding is just kind of different in my house. And every meal is not every meal. Now. I mean, it gets better, but it’s a little bit of a challenge. And she just doesn’t always eat what everyone else eats. And, and so I’d be so focused on hers, and I was like, I can’t just focus on her, I have to focus on me too. The other thing I needed to do is I needed to feel comfortable. And if there’s one thing about me, I’m pretty scrappy, like, I love challenges. But at the same time, I don’t like not having the confidence. And that’s where it is. I don’t like feeling not confident. And so I’ve learned strategies to get my confidence up sure, in my on lane or zone of genius, I can rock it. But are we ever really pushing our mind and staying in the same grooves? Neuroplasticity talks a lot about this, and I’m fascinated by it. So I encourage you if you want to learn more, go Google it. But it also brings me to the next thing I needed to burn those neural pathways into my brain. Because our brain works like a highway like, Okay, think about like a dirt road and you start driving on a dirt road. The more you drive on that dirt road, the more smoother the path becomes right. And then it’s not a dirt road anymore.

Well, your brain is the same way. The most beautiful thing is that we can create new behaviors, habits patterns, neurologically in our brain, so that it might start off difficult, but it gets easier and easier. I also found that this is with music too, and vibration and taking dance breaks and just dancing. I have been dancing. Not at a studio, but like at least three to six times a week in my house. And sometimes when I get stressed, I’ll dance sometimes when I am happy, I’ll dance sometimes when my friends are over, I’ll dance like dancing is so fun for me. And like literally, it releases endorphins, the happy hormone, it gets your cardio system pumping, it releases stress to rebalance, you’re exhausted adrenals which are your fight or flight glands. That pump far too much stress producing cortisol leaving you feeling like an eggshell of a person. The other thing I realized I needed to do is I needed to give myself grace. Guys, grace is so important that I literally made that my daughter’s middle name, Grace, I need to give me Grace and I need to give others grace when they let me down, right. And graze is important. I needed to not be too hard on myself, which is why I needed like a regiment. And also like naps. I don’t know if any of you guys grew up at the same time I am 41. And it was always get up off the couch, go outside and play. You’re lazy. These are like the childhood stuff that I fight in my brain. And so it’s like, I can’t take a nap in the middle of the afternoon. Like, what are you doing? No, you’re listening to your body, sometimes you need it. And, and real rest, you know. So I also needed to speak it out loud. That was something else I needed to do. I needed to have accountability. So, in my Beachbody days, I don’t some of you guys know because some of you came along with me there was like 30 of you. And we were doing Beachbody back in 2019 2018, maybe 2018 I think it was. And we’re all working out in the morning. We’re all like sweaty selfies and sharing photos of food and meal prepping and all that stuff. And I know that I do well, when I have when I have people around me others doing the same thing. And then I realized, you know what, okay, I’m gonna break this down. I just need to get to the gym and sweat. I don’t need to stress out about you know, am I other than, you know, I don’t want to injure myself while working out right. But other than like, what’s my routine? Or what machines am I going to do? Or do I? Do I look funny? Are people looking at me and like, all this stuff that goes through your head? None of it matters. My only goal was to get there and sweat well. That was the beginning. Just get there and sweat. Mission accomplished. So it’s like breaking it down into little actionable milestones and then intentions, so I wasn’t making anything intentional. For example, I changed that and so now in the morning, I have my little accountability partner My buddy, and my best friend, honestly. And where I was like, Hey, so what do you make for dinner tonight. And with that intention also came, just changing my behaviors of things like when I would get a pack of chicken, that was like three chicken breasts, instead of freezing it and putting it into 111 bags each. So I could pull out one ba because something I knew about me is that I’m Italian, I know how to cook for like 10 people, I don’t know how to cook for one person. It’s kind of funny, actually. So I’d end up with all these leftovers. And by day two, I’d be like, I’m sick of this. And so it’s just a quick, you know, behavior change, that leads to healthier habits. And I needed to surround myself by other people doing the same things, and I needed to focus on one thing, and then start the habit of stacking a good.

A good description of this is Atomic Habits, the book, we’ve read it in The Mastermind together. But it works. I’ve even had coaching calls where, you know, they’ve been in this situation, which is also part of what inspired me to just talk to you all about this is that, you know, she was getting out and she was feeling kind of depressed and lonely. And so we’re like, okay, what are you already doing? And how can you just start habit stacking, she’s like, well, I could do yoga for five minutes. When I come home, after I walk my on dogs perfectly, do it. Because I just like going to the gym and starting sweating. That’s it tiny little goals that once you build that confidence that you can start doing things better, those behaviors will lead to habits, ergo, the whole point of this podcast episode, is what kind of behaviors are you doing that create your habits? Or one could argue? What kind of habits do you have that are creating your behaviors, although I like to go from small to big? And so I want you guys to think about this in your life. What are you doing right now that you can, you can change, it comes from little things, little things, it comes from one, knowing yourself, it comes then it goes to actually figuring out little things that you can do. And those little things become great things, they become bigger things because the amount of those little things become bigger and bigger and bigger, until it’s now part of your life. It’s part of who you are. And here’s gonna be a Mic drop. I’m not gonna drop my mic, though promise. This is all happening in your life. Whether or not you’re intentional or not. You already have habits and behaviors that are happening on autopilot, you’re not being intentional about them. And that can be positive or negative. So what I’m trying to encourage you what I’m trying to inspire in you today is that you’re already doing this. Are you being intentional? What behaviors are you doing every day, to intentionally change your habits to change your life? Because what you do in your personal life is going to drastically impact your business. We all have 24 hours in the day, how are you using yours? We all have choices of who we surround ourselves with who are in yours.

There’s this cool app, it’s called Brain Tap. And it’s its neuroplasticity. And there are tons of things on there and you listen to it. I listen to it on my phone next to my head, or I put in my earbuds if I can. And it does these binary binary beats or tunes where it goes from left to the right side of the speaker like your left and right ear. And then sometimes there’s two people talking. I know that sounds crazy, but probably for all of you other ADHD people out there like me, it’s beautiful. Again, find your poison. And when I take naps, that’s what I do. I listen to those I pick a topic, your mountainside route retreat, r reducing stress in your life o,r or drinking more water. There’s all these different things in there. And I ended up falling asleep. But that’s where your brain is like the most malleable. And I don’t remember some of it sometimes. And that’s okay. Because again, that’s when your brain is the most malleable. So you want to go take a nap? Cool. Do it while you’re also developing your neural pathways. You see how you can change your behaviors to create better habits. And it’s wildly powerful. And once you do that one area of your life you can do it in so many different areas of your life. It will spill through to all the others but today, I want to ask and encourage you. What are you doing to be intentional about your habits and behaviors? I hope that sharing some of my struggles and successes has helped you think about different areas of your own life. And again, I’m not I’m telling, I’m not telling you, you need to go to the gym, I’m not telling you, you need to eat healthy. Those are great things. But maybe your mountain is different than mine. Maybe you need to crawl out of the hole first, like I did a couple of years ago. We’re all in these different stages of this journey. And I want to encourage you to keep jumping. I say always keep jumping because it’s the momentum. After all, it’s the thing that keeps you going and gets you unstuck so that you don’t end up being in that hole of quicksand. It is so important and celebrate your wins. I don’t care how small this is, you can do it. Alright, this episode is a little bit longer than others. I am praying that our podcast stats will not go down because you guys usually like the shorter ones. But this is from my heart. And I hope that it has opened your eyes or inspired you in different ways. I would love to know if something stood out to you or something, you know, pricks you write me, bella@jumpconsulting.net get on a call with me if you want to talk about it. Jumpconsulting.net/20. My sole purpose is to help make you a better business owner and a better person because I believe that your business should be your first employee and that your business should give you all the time and money freedom that you desire. You guys, always keep jumping, and I’ll see you next time. Bye now.