Hello and welcome to voice notes from your CFO. Bestie, I'm Harriet Formby, your fractional CFO and holistic business mentor, bringing you money chats, pep talks and financial know how that's practical, relatable, and actually feels good. Whether you're a business owner, a founder or an entrepreneur looking to get a handle on your finances, I'm here to help you make sense of it all.
Would you ask your pet for business advice? Now it seems like quite a strange concept when we have all these experts and advisors around us that we can go to with their years of training and experience and logic and skills and qualifications. But let's just consider this for a moment.
If you run a business and you have pets now myself, I've got quite a few pets. I've got dogs, cats, horses, sheep, chickens, turkeys, ducks. It kind of goes on. There's really, you know, almost a farmyard situation, I would say, you know, sometimes in the background when I'm having a call and you know yourself, perhaps you've got something similar going on farmyard in the background, or cats or dogs or something, and you know they often are very cute and adorable when they pop up when we're on Zoom, and everyone can see a cute little face, and we will have a laugh about it, and It's very endearing.
But there's another side to animals, and the sort of companionship and that connection, which is very much about their kind of wisdom and their knowing and their instincts. And you know, when you think about it, they often have this way about them that they have trust in themselves. They don't overthink, they don't hesitate. And honestly, I think there's a lot we could learn from them, which I'd like to get into today. And as some of you will know, I recently lost my whip, it Alfonso or Fonzie or the Fonz. And I'm not going to dwell just to kind of caveat, I'm not going to dwell on kind of grief and loss in this episode. So if you're wondering, that's not the direction we're going in.
But basically, you know, he was, he was there through all the all the ups and downs of running my business. And he was, you know, a very bold whip it very assured. You know, sometimes people frame Whippets as being quite nervous dogs. But he was very bold, very kind of assured of himself. No doubts whatsoever. He knew what he wanted. And he kind of went for it, kind of style. So that was his personality. So he wouldn't be kind of like sitting around second guessing himself, wondering if you should take up space, or kind of hesitating before going after what he wanted. He would just do the thing.
And I know not all of you know, not all pets all have their own personalities and the different traits, you know, depending on the species and the breeding and all of that stuff as well. And I've got a colleague, Oswald, who is, you know, he's a lot more thoughtful and a bit he is a bit of a nervous dog, but he is, you know, he likes patterns and he likes to know what's going on. And he's thoughtful and considered. So he would be, you know, nice and rational and thinking things through a bit more. But the thing is, with these, these animals, is that they trust their instincts. They trust what they, you know, the messages that they're receiving. They interpret them, and they kind of trust what, how to respond.
And it got me, yeah, kind of thinking about, you know, if we're often in business with we're thinking about our next move. We might be a bit nervous about launching something new, about raising our prices, or stepping up into something bigger. And what if we channelled that energy of kind of trusting our instincts and the way that our pets trust their instincts? And you know, sometimes there might be elements of, are you ready or not? And, you know, the animals tend to move. They kind of movement. You know, they get into motion and they do things, whereas we maybe tend to kind of freeze and ask for lots of opinions. And maybe, you know, get stuck in that kind of loop sometimes of not knowing how to kind of move forward.
So anyway, perhaps you can relate to this. And if you're sat there with, you know, your dog or cat or another pet nearby, you might be nodding thinking, Yes, they've got some wisdom here, in there, you know, in their in their inner knowing. So got a couple of prompts that I wanted to share to just ponder on. So, what would your pet say? And there might be some areas to think about, so around kind of pricing and worth, if there's something you're going over and, you know, maybe thinking about raising prices, you know, what would your dogs and. Advice be, if you're in a position where you may be nervous to kind of, look at your finances, open the bank account, look at the, you know, the piano report.
What would maybe your pet do in that situation if they were advising you? I've been reflecting on this with my lovely whip, it Alfonso, and, you know, reflecting on his character and his lessons, being a very bold shelf, self assured chap who, you know, didn't doubt his worth, he would ask for what he needed, and whether it was attention, food or, you know, to go out and about. He was very loyal and also very sensitive and in tune with what's going on, and had this, this way of kind of grounding in, you know, in the moment.
As pets do, really, they're very much in the present moment, aren't they, in the way that they respond and, you know, integrate into, you know, what's going on. And I think if he could give me business advice, he would probably say to, you know, trust yourself, advocate for what you need to be like, bold and direct and don't shrink backwards. And this idea, you know, of being nervous about making a change or trying something new, I just, I think he would just be kind of confused by that idea of it just like, we'll just do it. It's a great idea. So, yeah. Really interested to see how you get on. If you kind of, yeah, test out. You know, when I say ask, you could literally just sit there and ask them and see what, what comes up. You could try a bit of journaling.
You could put yourself in their shoes and imagine, you know, from their perspective, what they'd say. But I'd just be really curious to see how, you know, let me know, you know, get in touch with me and let me know if you try this and what comes up for you. Because I think it's a really nice experiment to kind of, you know, think of it from that kind of, you know, your pets perspective. And they obviously watch you working as well, and they've probably got a bit of an insight into what you do, and maybe the ins and outs of your business too.
So I hope you find that valuable. And it is some, you know, there's some enriching tips that come through from that. I also wanted to share today around that, you know, the topic of wisdom. And I'm just taking us away from the pet topic for a moment, but I'm going to be, and I've had a little bit of a break from my, you know, podcasting over the over the winter, and I'm planning a few episodes basically around kind of like business and finance structure.
So, you know, even if you've been in business for many years, things like handling your accounts, dealing with taxes, navigating like the company structure and the whole world of the rules around it and the whys, and, you know, the fears we sometimes have, even if you've been around that a long time, I know a lot of people are still often wondering, like, what the hell half of it means, and should they be worried? Are they doing the right thing? Is it holding them back. Are they optimized? Is it structured, right? And maybe they're getting, like, generic, cold, heavy answers, or maybe no answers, or maybe you're, you know, nervous to ask, you know, your accountant or somebody else, like, what it actually means. And it doesn't have to be this way.
What if we can do, which is something that I do, just to say is, is make it real, make it practical, make it like, relevant to your craft and your business, and like your personality and your goals and your ambitions. And like, what if we tailored that and we talked about it in the way that was about possibilities rather than limitation, so that instead of feeling like dry and confusing, it actually made sense and injected like enthusiasm and energy into the whole thing.
So that's what we're going to be doing in the next couple of episodes. And you might be thinking, There's no way this stuff can be inspiring and exciting. So I just wanted to share with you as well something some feedback I got recently, basically, I've been doing a project with a client, and they were bringing in, they were reviewing the business structure, basically, and bringing in a new partner. And basically they, you know, the process could have been a bit of a nightmare and something quite tricky, but what they actually said to me was, I'm not just gonna read it out to you. Thank you so much this, because this has been a really enjoyable process. I thought it could have been a bit of a nightmare, and when we talked to other people about this stuff, it sounded really, really off putting, but this has actually been a really positive experience. I just feel like the way you've guided us through the whole process, process has been absolutely dreamy.
So this is what we're going for. This is the vibe I'm going to be bringing to this and sharing some extracts with you over the next few weeks, or the next few episodes, certainly.
And if there's anything you know of that flavour that you perhaps would love, love for me to cover, then do get in touch with me. One of the best ways to do that is. I go to the Instagram page for this show, which is CFO underscore voice notes, and you can send me a DM or leave me a voice note there.
Also would love to hear how you get on with the xercise of, kind of asking your pet for business advice. And love to know what you what you take from that, really, if anything interesting comes up for you, and what their advice might be, so I will speak to you soon. Thank you so much for tuning in and have a great week
