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Emma McQueen

Emma McQueen

Rollover, NOT refund!

| Action Station, All Posts

I, like many of you, have been impacted by the not-so-friendly virus that is COVID-19.

I have been working with clients to help them pivot (ever seen that Friends episode where Ross tries to squeeze the mattress around the corner? Do yourself a favour and watch it!), pull things online, and work out what clients and customers need in this time.

There is so much negative news, people cannot stop talking about coronavirus, and we are living in fear (with not-so-clear direction from Scotty, I might add).

It’s times like these we need to face outwards and work out what service looks like for you and your business. Who can you serve at this time? What value can you add to current clients without the icky sell?

As you know, a lot of the work I do is face to face: Lunch with the Queen, Thriving Women workshops, and coaching. The whole kit and kaboodle. We have now moved most things online.

I recently had an interesting conversation with Bel Temby from Digital Services Lab, and we spoke about the idea of offering a rollover rather than a refund. What does that mean? Well, we are all small businesses, so let me tell you what I did for Lunch with the Queen.

Scheduled for April 23rd, our sold-out Lunch with the Queen now can’t go ahead, as restaurants are all closed due to COVID-19. So, I rang everyone (yes, I actually picked up the phone!) and offered them a rollover to a yet-to-be-determined date OR a refund and a Zoom call with all 16 guests, who could BYO lunch.

The result? Some fantastic conversations with awesome women, some of whom I am yet to meet, who profusely thanked me for picking up the phone to check in and explain the situation. Almost everyone chose the rollover and everyone is still meeting on Zoom because they want to connect, especially now!

People want to help. They want the chance to support others in business. I also want to continue to serve, and this seemed like the right choice for right now.

What about you? Do you need to offer your clients a rollover?

Feel free to get in touch with me here

I’m Emma, and I’m a business and executive coach who believes wholeheartedly in the potential of women. My coaching philosophy is simple- taking action leads to results- and I love working with women in business and in corporate roles to take their passion and drive and transform their professional and personal lives.

Be enthusiastic, optimistic and energetic, every day.

“I just need more time.” Or do you?

| Action Station, All Posts, Challenges for Women

What do Jacinda Ardern, Greta Thunberg and Beyoncé all have in common? No, it’s not fame or headlines. They each have 86,400 seconds in a day to make it count!

And so do you.

“I wish there were more hours in the day…”

We’ve all said this. I know I’ve mumbled it! How many times have you heard others say it?

In our society, we constantly hear references to time running out, lack of time, having no time, we’ve got too much to do and not enough time, if only there were more hours in the day… I’m guilty of saying these things, as well.

It reminds me of the great quote from Margaret Atwood in her book, The Handmaid’s Tale:

“But that’s where I am. There’s no escaping it. Time’s a trap, I’m caught in it.”

Can you relate? When we feel caught in this trap called time, we feel crappy. It steals our happiness. And we wish we had more time so we could get everything done.

We’re “time poor”

One of my clients, Layla, never seemed to have enough time. She was a classic example of what we consider “time poor”: always busy, always working, with little time for herself.

Layla was not alone. As a female leadership coach, one of the things I commonly hear from women, especially those juggling a business and family, is that there’s just not enough time.


But is that true?

Do we really not have enough time? Or is it that we don’t use our time effectively? Do we focus on the wrong things at the wrong times?


According to Forbes, time is our most valuable commodity. Research shows that “time stress” is linked with reduced wellbeing, decreased happiness and increased levels of anxiety and insomnia.

So, the question is, how do we value our time? Just how precious is it to us? And what’s a smart way to use it?

The fact is, there is no more time

Imagine, if you will, an hourglass. It holds 24 hours. We all have the same sized hourglass, so everything we do must fit inside it.


This presents you with a wonderful opportunity! How you spend your 24 hours is entirely your choice! Your 24 hours is time for you to nourish yourself. It’s time to sleep well and be fit for each day. It’s time to spend with the people closest to you. It’s time to do the work you love and make the difference you were born to make.

The key is to know your priorities

The most successful women in business and leadership ruthlessly prioritise. They know how to balance the important and the urgent. And when they don’t, they have someone in their corner to gently – and sometimes loudly! – keep them on track.


You see, using your time well has nothing to do with how much of it you have. It’s about the choices you make and how you prioritise.

“Time is a gift, given to you, given to give you the time you need, the time you need to have the time of your life.”

– Norton Juster

Urgent vs non-urgent

Our progress with an important task is easily derailed by the “urgent” – things that require our IMMEDIATE attention. These things are usually not important, yet they steal our attention away from what we should be doing at that moment.

The urgent shouts, “NOW! I need your attention NOW!” It puts us in reactive mode, which is really unhelpful.

Important tasks, on the other hand, contribute to our long-term mission. They bring our purpose, values and goals to life. Sometimes, important tasks are urgent, but typically they’re not.


The Eisenhower Matrix is a useful tool that can help you prioritise tasks by urgency. It identifies:

  • The urgent and important
  • The less urgent and important
  • The urgent and less important
  • The less urgent and less important

Prioritising tasks this way means you can decide what you should:

  • Do first
  • Schedule
  • Delegate
  • Don’t do

Let’s go back to Layla…

Layla continued to show up to our coaching sessions, telling me she couldn’t get all her tasks done because she didn’t have enough time. So, I asked her to make a list of all the tasks she was doing. We then identified the tasks that were urgent but not important, and the things that were important but not urgent.

What we discovered was that Layla really enjoyed networking and building relationships. This was great from a business development perspective, but it meant a lot of her important work was not getting done. Because it wasn’t in her diary, it didn’t take precedence.

So, we worked on Layla’s calendar. We scheduled time for the important things, so they didn’t become urgent things, and we scheduled time for the less-important (but enjoyable) things, such as Layla’s networking events.

One important task Layla struggled with was writing content. She procrastinated on it so much that I issued her a challenge. She was not allowed to attend her coveted networking events for a week if she hadn’t written her content!

What do you think happened? That’s right, she did not like the thought of no networking, so she got onto her content immediately! Suddenly, there was time to write. There was also time to get her calendar sorted, time for all the things she did not think were possible. And there was time for her networking events!

Was it easy? No! Nothing worth it is. Did having a plan make Layla happier? You betcha!  

By becoming clear on her non-negotiable tasks, Layla could plan, prioritise and value her time, and she was loving life again.

I’m Emma, and I’m a business and executive coach who believes wholeheartedly in the potential of women. My coaching philosophy is simple- taking action leads to results- and I love working with women in business and in corporate roles to take their passion and drive and transform their professional and personal lives.

Be enthusiastic, optimistic and energetic, every day.

Em x

Working from home can suck

| All Posts, Challenges for Women

Working from home can suck

So many women are building fantastic businesses. They often keep overheads low by working from home, but what happens when working from home isn’t taken seriously?

Let me explain …

One of my clients rang me, feeling extremely frustrated. She worked from home, and because of this, her friends thought she was available to them all day. She had to deal with all kinds of interruptions – phone calls, visits, texts. Meanwhile, her working time was already extremely limited.

When I asked her how many people she was talking about, she said she received at least two visitors a day! Can you imagine? When you have children at school, the only time you can work is during school hours. Having a couple of visitors drop in each day meant there were days when my client was getting nothing done.

“Take me seriously!”

Previously, my gorgeous client saw her business as a hobby. A visitor here and there was okay, but one year later, she had transformed her “hobby” into a profit-making centre. She had changed, but her friends thought it was “hobby as usual”. Throw in the fact she genuinely wanted to help her friends and didn’t like saying no to them – it was a recipe for disaster.

In fact, my client’s situation had become so bad, she drew her blinds during the day so no one would think she was home. I don’t know about you, but that would make me feel like a prisoner in my own home! At least it was a start to tackling the problem, I thought.

Plan of attack

Things couldn’t continue this way, so we came up with a plan. Here’s what it looked like:

  • We did some work on her mindset, so she would feel okay about putting her business first after years of focusing on others.
  • We brainstormed options that would work for her personality and business.
  • We agreed she would let her visitors know she needed to be more vigilant with her time as her business was getting bigger.
  • She scheduled time in her diary so her visitors could still see her, but when it suited her and her business.
  • She also talked to her family about the changes she was making, so they could have her back when necessary. This also signalled to her family that her business was now a serious one.

Two months later, I am happy to report this strategy worked – mostly! It didn’t work when my client accepted visitors outside her scheduled times. She quickly discovered that when you loosen boundaries once, it’s hard to force them back into place.

What about you? Do you have people “drop in” because you happen to work from home? How does this affect your business and wellbeing?

Perhaps it’s time to set some boundaries of your own.

There is more out there

| All Posts, Challenges for Women

Do you want more? Do you find yourself thinking you want to have more, do more, be more?

“I want more energy. I want more confidence. I want more financial freedom.”

How often do we say these things to ourselves?! As a female leadership coach, I hear it from my clients all the time. The good news is, you can have more. Now is the time!

The problem is, when we tell ourselves we want more, we usually follow it up with something like, “But it’s impossible. What I have now is all I can hope for.”

How wrong this is!

If there was nothing more to have, how boring the world would be! There is more out there for you, but you need to go out and get it.

To get more, you need to tap into a different mindset. As I talked about in my previous blog post, I should be happy with what I have this blog post, so often, we revert to a mindset that tells us, “It’s too hard. I should be happy with what I have.”

No, you shouldn’t be happy with what you have! It’s time to silence that inner critic. You should never feel guilty for wanting greater happiness and success in your life!

So, instead of adopting a mindset that points out all the reasons why you can’t have more, you need to create a mindset that focuses on the reasons why you can have more – and how.

So, how do you get more?

To get more, we need to challenge the status quo. We need to look for new and better ways of doing things in our businesses and personal lives.

This is not easy to do. It involves a level of uncertainty, and it can even make us feel unhappy in the short-term. But in the long-term, the result is greater happiness, because we’ve uncovered new possibilities and have gained better insight into what makes us happy and unhappy.

To get more can take a leap of faith. It’s helpful if we have a tribe that has our backs. And the more we take that leap of faith, the easier it becomes, and the more our confidence grows.

Is it possible to have it all?

I think it’s possible to have it all, just not all at once.

In her article, “Women CAN Have It All — Just Not All At The Same Time,” Lisa Quast talks about feeling frustrated while trying to balance her job and family life. I’m sure many of you can relate to this.

It’s hard. Juggling a family and career at the same time takes so much time and energy. Women are still the main caregivers, they are paid less than men, they do more housework than men … All this certainly eats into our ability to strive for more.

So, perhaps it’s not a simple question of, “Can we have it all?”

Perhaps it’s more a question of, “How can I manage my expectations so I can have it all – at different stages of my life?”

So, what are you waiting for? Go out and get it!

I’m Emma, and I’m a business and executive coach who believes wholeheartedly in the potential of women. My coaching philosophy is simple- taking action leads to results- and I love working with women in business and in corporate roles to take their passion and drive and transform their professional and personal lives.

Be enthusiastic, optimistic and energetic, every day.

Em x

“I should be happy with what I have.”

| Challenges for Women, Mindset Tips

Haven’t we all said this to ourselves before?

When we’re feeling unhappy, we often tell ourselves we should be happy – usually sternly, impatiently. Our inner voice says, “Stop complaining! Be grateful for what you have.”

We try to believe ourselves into happiness. Sometimes, it’s almost like we try to force our attitudes and emotions to change, and we criticise ourselves if we’re not in a constant state of positivity.

I wonder whether it’s the way we have been brought up. As Australians, we’re often told we live in the “lucky country”, so there’s the perception we shouldn’t dare complain.

And, as women, it’s beaten into us that we should be grateful for being able to have a family and work professionally and do the things we want to do personally.


But this is gratitude gone wrong

It’s true that gratitude is important. Being thankful and appreciative is a wonderful feeling. But it’s almost like we’ve been brainwashed into thinking we should be happy, regardless of what’s happening in our lives.

Is that right? Should we always be happy with what we have?

The downside to always being happy

I worry that if we try to constantly “be happy with what we have,” we stop striving to reach bigger goals. We stagnate in our lives and our businesses. We stay in our comfort zone, perhaps even in our discomfort zone, and deny ourselves greater happiness.  

Now, I’m not necessarily talking about striving for more money or trying to climb the corporate ladder, although these things can be helpful. I’m talking about striving to continue to learn and explore new avenues and opportunities so that we can grow as human beings.


Why is it so hard to be happy?

In his article, “12 Reasons You’re Not As Happy As You Should Be,” Travis Bradberry says happiness is “synthetic” – either you create happiness, or you don’t. Lasting happiness, he argues, is the result of carefully honed habits practised day in, day out.

Among the top reasons why we are not happy are:

  • Hanging around negative people.
  • Comparing our lives to what we see on social media.
  • Isolating ourselves.
  • Neglecting to set goals.
  • Giving in to fear.

This is great news! It means we do have some control over our happiness. By avoiding the above behaviours, we position ourselves for a more positive mindset and engage in more helpful habits that will make us happy, build confidence and improve self-esteem.

But it’s also important we are kind to ourselves. S*** happens, and sometimes there’s nothing we can do about it. When things go awry, allow yourself to feel negative, give yourself some space to complain, but then dust yourself off and move on.

You deserve to be happy!

I’m Emma, and I’m a business and executive coach who believes wholeheartedly in the potential of women. My coaching philosophy is simple- taking action leads to results- and I love working with women in business and in corporate roles to take their passion and drive and transform their professional and personal lives.

Be enthusiastic, optimistic and energetic, every day.

Em x

New Year’s resolutions are a load of BS

| Action Station, Goals

At our Thriving Women’s retreat in November last year, we agreed we would run the Mother’s Day Classic together in May. That’s either a 5km or 10km run. We had a few runners in the group who offered to put together training plans for those of us who hadn’t run before and needed to be race ready (aren’t we lucky!).

I received the plan and it looked doable. The training weeks were mapped out for us, starting in February and finishing on race day in May. The interesting thing for me was the plan didn’t tell us to run a certain number of kilometres, just a certain amount of time. So, instead of running for 1km, it said to run for one minute, then walk for four minutes, and so on.

I’m guessing by the end of it, I will be able to run 10km!

At the time I received my training plan, I was already thinking about my goals for 2020 – both personally and professionally.

I’ve read that the failure rate of New Year’s resolutions is about 80%. So, as I was thinking about what I wanted to achieve in 2020, I decided to start training for the Mother’s Day Classic before the end of 2019.

I started week one in the middle of December. I decided I would do week one twice and the final week twice, too, to bring me up to May. It’s going well and I feel like I have “flipped the system”. Or maybe I have just created the useful belief that starting a New Year’s resolution before the start of the New Year will give it more “stickiness”.

I guess what I’m trying to say (holiday brain is clearly still with me!) is that even if you don’t have a plan for 2020 yet, you can create one at any time. Sometimes, doing some activity in the right direction is a good start.

Don’t wait for a new year, a new week, a new month to get started. It’s a load of bollocks that you need to wait. Get cracking now!

And if you’d like to share with me your plans and goals for the year ahead, please do. Email me at emma@emmamcqueen.com.au