0:00:44 Ben Wright: Welcome back to Friends in Business. We have your wonderful co host, Jemimah Ashley.
0:00:49 Jemimah Ashleigh: Hi, how are you?
0:00:50 Ben Wright: And me.
0:00:52 Jemimah Ashleigh: Also here.
0:00:52 Ben Wright: Also here. My name’s Ben Wright. For those who don’t know me. We’ve just been giggling away as we talk about how we’re going to introduce this topic. And I think where we ended up was let’s wing it. Certainly not about the topic. We’ve got a very descriptive topic we want to talk about.
0:01:07 Jemimah Ashleigh: We do.
0:01:07 Ben Wright: But Jemimah, as you sit here right now, after we’ve said we’re going to wing it, what’s one thing you want to ask me?
0:01:12 Jemimah Ashleigh: I would like to know what we’re having for dinner tonight.
0:01:15 Ben Wright: We’re actually having poke bowls.
0:01:16 Jemimah Ashleigh: That’s amazing. I’m very hungry.
0:01:17 Ben Wright: Poke bowls for those who’ve never got around and made them at home. They are so good. And I have a five year old. We, as in my wife and I, we have a five year old and this little kid, she loves Wakame and Edamame and she’s hooking into the poke bowls. And we’re so glad we started early on that journey of getting her to be really versatile in her food. But you wait, when she comes in, it’s going to be all about the poke bowl.
0:01:38 Jemimah Ashleigh: Which I’m also fine with. That’s really fine. I’m also very excited about them.
0:01:42 Ben Wright: Yeah, excellent. Well, you know, we probably could have come up with something more interesting around, like what’s your deepest darkest fear? Or I’ll tell you, what we are going to talk about today though, is a significant challenge. And this is a personal challenge, not a business challenge.
0:01:56 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah, we really have departed, I think, from our normal scheduled programming talking about significant challenge that we’ve personally faced that maybe other people don’t know about. This came up as a little bit of feedback from a previous podcast episode. It was like, wow, you guys have actually been through some stuff. And we went, yes, we have. And this has become something, I guess we’re actively more talking about our business journey, but also Our personal journeys at the same time.
0:02:20 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah. And I think for us. So it’s a personal challenge that is related at a business point of view. Right. So, Jemimah, I’d love it if you went first today.
0:02:28 Jemimah Ashleigh: Sure. I’d love to tell you mine. Mine isn’t too much of a secret for anyone that’s ever followed my stuff, but was up until probably about six months ago, extremely hidden. So I. And Ben, I don’t think I’ve even walked you through all of this. You’ve just got the cliff nose when I walk in and say I need the fridge and throw medication into it. So about when I was 11 years old, I got became very, very unwell and ended up in hospital with massive kidney infections and I couldn’t figure out what was going on. And it turns out I have a pretty significant birth defect. I was born with an extra kidney. So I actually have an extremely big chronic health issue that I’ve battled for the last. My entire life, really. But it’s really, really come to a head in the last couple of years and I’ve been in a bit of. With that for a little bit. So I was going to share a bit about that today and what it’s like really, to live with a chronic health condition.
0:03:27 Ben Wright: Two kidneys.
0:03:28 Jemimah Ashleigh: You normally have two. Yeah, So I have two very formed ones, very happy, independent ones here. I have an enlarged one on this side. So I have the equivalent of 3.5 kidneys. Have you ever noticed how many times I have to say I need the bathroom while we’re recording?
0:03:45 Ben Wright: That’s why I haven’t.
0:03:46 Jemimah Ashleigh: You will now.
0:03:47 Ben Wright: I’m oblivious to that stuff very carefully in terms of noticing. Okay. So that’s obviously had a big impact on your life and I do know about this, so I don’t need to react as if it’s the first time I’ve heard it.
0:03:58 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:03:58 Ben Wright: Brand new information and at the risk of sounding soulless, we’re going to talk today about how it’s impacted our ability to perform at a business level.
0:04:04 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yes, for sure. Tell us about it. Well, so how it historically worked for me is I would develop a urinary tract infection which would develop into a kidney infection which had catastrophic consequences. A couple of times. What you need to know, very quick biology lesson is on top of your kidneys is something called the adrenal glands. Do you know what they are responsible for?
0:04:26 Ben Wright: Adrenaline.
0:04:26 Jemimah Ashleigh: It’s a. Yeah, energy. So the first thing that happens is I get very, very tired when I start to get an infection. So what has historically happened is I would get very tired for a couple of days, develop an infection, have to go on a course of antibiotics, and this would take anywhere between two to three weeks to clear up. What’s made this significantly worse is I’ve probably had over 100 of these infections. So over time, you are now talking about a wall of time that has been sunken into this that also impacts my bottom line because I can’t go to work, or if I’m working, I’m on the couch. I’m not going to networking events. I’m not going. I’m missing stuff. I got Covid. Got run down, couldn’t come up here and got a kidney infection. I was like, well, that’s my next week out, so I can’t even come and see you guys and record. It has put absolutely huge impact on the business because I have been impacted.
One of the reasons I actively really advocated for this being the topic we were talking about is because so many people, when I opened up about this chronic health condition in 2024, I ended up in hospital. I ended up with sepsis. I almost died this year. I’ve had a few hiccups, but nothing bad. But I have managed to procure a vaccine for this. This is like I’m on a trial. It’s grossly impacted our schedule of recording, which is every week or so because I’m constantly having to get different tests and stuff done. And that’s been absolutely incredible. That’s the background.
What I want to mention specifically here is the impact that any chronic health stuff has on your life, but particularly business. Number one, you’re missing meetings no matter what you try to do. You are failing at work stuff at least a couple of times. Your energy levels are crashing and 100% in the bathroom. At some times you are just not having a great time. So even if you wanted to sit down and record, you couldn’t. You couldn’t push through. You can’t pretend that you could do that.
The next is, financially, this has a huge impact. Not just because you have to go to doctors. I took over a thousand tablets like in the last six months. That’s a lot of medication that you have to take. Not just the cost of that, the development costs for the business. I’m not going to a lot of these sales opportunities that in the rooms and the conferences and the speaking engagements, hugely impactful. And finally just also putting huge stress and the mind space that having a chronic condition takes up. Gotta call the doctor back. I have to do That I have to go. Oh, did you take your medication? Did you do this? That’s time. I’m not developing or working in the company.
0:07:08 Ben Wright: Okay.
0:07:08 Jemimah Ashleigh: And therefore we’re restricted.
0:07:10 Ben Wright: Okay. So impactful. Really impactful.
0:07:13 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:07:13 Ben Wright: And again, not trying to sound disingenuous, but we’re here to try and provide great advice. What have you done to make sure you remain productive while dealing with that?
0:07:20 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah. So there’s a couple of grammar rules that I put in with the team really quickly. Sometimes they will have to cancel things. But the good news is that my team have been incredible about that of picking up slack if I needed them to. I have created a business that I actually don’t have to go to work if I don’t have to. As in like I don’t have to go to an office. It just means sometimes I can’t do networking events. So number one, away from the couch a little bit. Sometimes you have to do those things when you have chronic health. I do not recommend that. But it’s better than being in bed. Sometimes you just have to be comfortable and do what you need to do. The second thing is sometimes you have to cancel things and that’s really okay. There’s very few times in your life that will be absolutely catastrophic if you withdraw from doing something, speaking an event, going on a trip, whatever that looks like. And the other thing that I’ve put in place is ensured that every single person that I have to have that phone call with will actually be okay with it. I’ve just made sure and surrounded myself with the right people that if that deadline’s not met, there’s a real reason why. And honestly had to be a bit honest and say this is actually medical. This isn’t because I couldn’t be bothered doing the document for you.
0:08:29 Ben Wright: Anything around your prioritisation where you make sure you’re always getting the most important stuff done.
0:08:34 Jemimah Ashleigh: Because of the condition that I’ve had, it can be struck down at any given time. There’s not a rhyme or reason to it, unfortunately. That’s just. Honestly, at a micro bio level, the prioritization really comes from. If anything, sometimes I have to delegate out to team who know how to do their job anyway. And most of the job that I have set up and that I can outsource 90% of it.
0:09:01 Ben Wright: Okay.
0:09:01 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:09:02 Ben Wright: All right. So what we’re doing is we’re getting organized so that when you have restrictions on your time.
0:09:07 Jemimah Ashleigh: If there’s a flare up, we’ve got some restrictions.
0:09:10 Ben Wright: Yeah, you can delegate out to Your team. Right. And you’ve been clear with customers around. You know, when you first engage with your customers around the impact it could have. However, you know, when it does happen that you’re able to work through it, you know, you resolve the issues. Yeah, I don’t think you said it, but I think you meant it. You resolve the issues in your time and it’s on you to try and work through those.
0:09:28 Jemimah Ashleigh: Okay.
0:09:29 Ben Wright: Okay, great. Any advice for people that are suffering, that have challenges? In fact, I’m not going to say suffering. Any advice for people who have challenges at a health level around how they can make sure that their business continues to perform?
0:09:43 Jemimah Ashleigh: Great question. I believe there are a lot more people impacted by chronic health conditions than we believe. One thing that happened when I started actively sharing this story and going and being approved for this vaccine, that people came out to say, oh, that happens to me. Oh, my gosh, I wish I’d known. And actively I had not spoken about it, probably even to you to a degree. And. And something. I then went, well, all right, let’s start maybe having this conversation. Chronic health, I think, affects more people than we believe. What I would recommend is you have to gauge where you are, but be honest. If you are unwell, be unwell. Don’t try to push through it. That’s actually detrimental to yourself, your business, your staff, your team, whoever you’ve got around you. If you’re unwell, be unwell. Know now what you can delegate as soon as possible. Get very, very clear, and you have to set strategies up if you. If things go south. You also need to be very, very clear with people about your limitations. Occasionally this happens. I don’t lead with new clients just saying, no, I have a health condition. But I will ring and say, look, something’s come up. I’ll give you a call tomorrow. My sincerest apologies. I have draft emails ready to go if I need them, but just. You’d be surprised how many people are really great with you being honest.
0:10:58 Ben Wright: Okay, all right. So you’re advocating for honesty, setting up structures within your business that allow you to perform anything else.
0:11:04 Jemimah Ashleigh: And I would also ensure that you have really good support and structure around yourself because there is so much work that you’re going to have to catch up on. That’s get the right team, get right outsourcing, get right people around you.
0:11:19 Ben Wright: Okay, so is there anything else outside of those two that you’d highly recommend?
0:11:23 Jemimah Ashleigh: I think the biggest thing that I would add to that is just being gentle with yourself in times of flare up. As much as you can have support and have people around you and delegate work, I think there is this moment of that this isn’t an active choice. I have never once been like, you know what, it’s about time I go back to hospital. I’ve never thought that, not in a million years. I think that you have to be gentle when you’re going through situations that you have limited control over and almost just go, I understand what’s happening. And be really kind to yourself.
0:11:59 Ben Wright: Yeah. Awesome. Excellent. Okay, fantastic. Thank you for sharing that very easy stuff to share over to me, I guess.
0:12:05 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah. Your turn.
0:12:07 Ben Wright: Mine’s an interesting way in terms of what I’ve had to grapple with across my career. When I was young and when. I mean young, in my teens, my mum and dad got divorced and I got picked on a lot. Because they got divorced. I don’t think so, but they certainly. Kids preyed on it. Right?
0:12:22 Jemimah Ashleigh: Kids saw the wound.
0:12:23 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah. So. And that drove in me lots of issues. I mean I used to get, I remember I got stacked on. Anyone remember the old. You know, it stacks on right in the playground. I think it was like 43 lunches in a row or something. I remember when I was a 16 year old kid and I’m claustrophobic, so I hated being stacked on. And then after about 43 guys, I don’t know why the hell it took me so long. I took a few swings and took a couple of guys out and it tended to, to dissipate from there. I also got a lot bigger, right?
0:12:49 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah, Yeah.
0:12:50 Ben Wright: I wasn’t 6 foot 3. I was always a little bit short. I wasn’t the late grower. But what actually came out of that was baseline level of anxiety that has sat with me for a lot of my life, but really came out when I had some horrendous times in the business. And you know, if you think, to paraphrase this, we have new owners or new half owners into the business. They had a director put in. My business partner at the time had a big disagreement with them. You know, he decided to leave the business. Which placed an enormous amount of pressure on to me. I had a six week old. We had a global pandemic starting. Right. Really difficult, really shit situation for me to be put into that I didn’t deserve. But I was in there and what followed was a really difficult couple of years.
0:13:29 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah, right.
0:13:30 Ben Wright: For a whole lot of reasons. Within that business, within some of the other businesses. And that really drove my anxiety, I think, to new Levels. And in fact, it was to the point where I was drinking a lot more than I should, binging on Game of Thrones. And I had moments when I couldn’t get out of my car to get in the office. Right. Like it was bad. And in the end, it culminated in me having some deep, dark thoughts about where I was going to check out of this world from. And I think since then, I’ve certainly managed to get a hold of it. It pops its head up regularly at a much lower level. It’s a little small bubbling of hot water rather than a great big explosion. Or, you know, it’s strong wind rather than. Than Cyclone Alfred that we had to deal with over the last couple of months. But for me, what has come out of it is a really strong recognition about understanding your personal cues.
0:14:18 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
0:14:20 Ben Wright: So it’s recognizing when I’m in a situation that will cause me more anxiety, trying to get on top of it as soon as I possibly can. Right. And if I can’t, knowing what I’ve got to do to work my way through it.
0:14:32 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:14:33 Ben Wright: I spoke in episode 27. I think it was around this too shall pass. Right. Things are really as bad as you think they are, nor really as good as you think they are either. Right. But when you’re having those difficult moments, it’s really developed into me a sense to say, okay, let’s talk this through. What’s going on right now? Why are you getting anxious? What’s the real driver? Are you anxious that someone hasn’t turned up for the meeting, or is there something more than that? And you know, an offer will end up. Well, they haven’t turned up because they’re not valuing your service. They’re not getting the value from what they want. So they’re going to cancel. Right. Completely illogical.
0:15:04 Jemimah Ashleigh: Yeah. I’m going to lose them as a client. They hate me.
0:15:06 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah. Completely illogical. Right. But important that I learned how to stop that monkey mind, I think it’s called, or monkey brain, it’s been called in the past, where you’re right, it just jumps around like a monkey. Right. All over the place, all different spots. And to keep control of that. So what I’ve learned out of that is to be able to control my mind a little bit more powerfully. I recognize when they’re coming and know what to do to get out of it, which for me is often health and fitness. We’ve set up a gym here. We’ve set up a sauna. Here we’ve got a great about 15 minute long pool. It’s beautiful. Right. We get to jump in and do all of that, so that certainly helps. But then also knowing when I want to get a bit of help, my wife’s fantastic with this when I need to have a chat. She’s really good at recognizing when I’m in that spot and she just helps get me through it. And that’s certainly the bit of advice that I have for people. I’m cutting you off that opportunity to ask me that question around what’s next? But you know, we like to be nice and punchy in these podcasts.
So for me it’s when you’ve got something that you’re dealing with that you know can impact your performance at work, my number one recommendation is to start to recognize the cues for you because knowledge is power and once you recognize what those cues are, that can help you work through it.
Jemimah Ashleigh:
Yeah. And a lot of the information that, and just speaking from professionally, previous life, a lot of the information that we were taught about anxiety back in the day is actually not true. Like you can’t control it, you just kind of have to roll with it. Well, that’s actually not what that looks like. We all have a level of anxiety we deal with. But when I know what you’re talking about is sort of that next level area and how much that can absolutely dissipate your ability to do things when your reptile brain starts making some real loud clatter in the background.
0:16:44 Ben Wright: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I think if you can get on control of the stimulus, the cues, it helps you limit the impact. Know what rips you through it. Know what gets you to the other side when you’re dealing with any of those things as a second piece. And know the people you go to for help. So know your cues, know what gets you through it, and know the people you go to for help. And then what you have is a ready made playbook that’s there as you need it and helps you deal with the majority of the situation. Yeah, not all of them. If it helps you with the majority.
0:17:13 Jemimah Ashleigh: I will also say for this podcast, while we’re giving you sort of some broad tips and tricks here that definitely speak to professionals in relation to this and speak to see medical doctors to go and have a chat with them if this is troubling you in any way, shape or form, because certainly my physical health and I know, Ben, like your anxiety and mental health here, really, really important to stay on top of because this stuff really can come out of nowhere.
0:17:37 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah, look, absolutely. But in the absence of that, we’re obviously not trained professionals to talk about that stuff. You know, I’m really comfortable to say I’m on top of it the vast majority of the time. The very, very vast majority of the time I’m on the top of it and I’m, you know, enjoying life and. And hopefully this trial for you will help you continue the idea of your stuff.
0:17:54 Jemimah Ashleigh: Ah, the idea there was. And I think, probably, if I’m very honest, knowing that we’re going to wrap this up shortly, that I think when you get dealt the cards, this is how it felt to me. I was dealt a pretty dodgy hand. There were moments where I look at the cards and just be like, I hate the fact that I lose one month of every year on average. That I am. I’m stuck on the couch. I’m not going anywhere. I can’t leave the house. I’m on antibiotics. I don’t like. And that messes with your physical health really quite dramatically. And then later mental health, because I’m not going to birthday parties. I’m missing birthdays and Christmases and whatever that looks like. But the thing that really threw me was when I got the offer of maybe this would go away, I could finally acknowledge how bad those cards were. You mean I might get to reshuffle this deck? Are you joking? That to me seems. We’ll see what happens. But extremely fine.
0:18:46 Ben Wright: Yeah. Well, it indicates to keep searching. Right. Never, never accept where you’re at. Always be for ways to go and learn and improve the situation.
0:18:53 Jemimah Ashleigh: And sometimes you can do that with us.
0:18:55 Ben Wright: Excellent. Yeah. And we’ll keep trying to do that next week. We’re going to make sure it’s a nice, uplifting podcast. Right. A more somber one today, but we’ll come back all guns blazing in a week’s time and look forward to seeing you then.
0:19:05 Jemimah Ashleigh: Thanks for being here with us.
0:19:06 Ben Wright: Bye for now.
