Intro: Welcome to The Masterful Coach podcast with Molly Claire. If you're a coach who's ready to impact more lives, make more money and create a life you love, you're in exactly the right place. Get the support you deserve as a female entrepreneur. Master your coaching skills, grow your ideal business, and honor your priorities in your personal life. Are you in? Let's get started with your host, best selling author and master life and business coach, Molly Claire. Molly Claire: Hey, coach. Welcome to the new year! I have got the perfect episode to kick off your January. I have on the podcast today, Shira Gill. She is a home organization expert and a life coach and a soon-to-be three time author. Her work is incredible. And on this episode, she shares her five steps that she helps her clients with as they organize their home, even their business and their life. So if you like the idea of having more space, more time, and energy in your life, and you enjoy a simple five step process, this episode is definitely for you. One of the things that I love the most about this episode is how clear it is that Shira is interested in bringing enough structure and organization to actually allow a lot of creativity and openness and flow in our lives. Most of us here are creative entrepreneurs, and we absolutely have to have that open space. So I know you are going to love this episode. By the way, those of you stragglers that have been dragging your feet, but really wanted to do Create Your Killer program. It is not too late. We are starting with our welcome call next week. Go to mollyclaire.com, click on, 'Join Me in January' and you can sign up directly there. This is your chance to finally clarify your clear, unique coaching program. It is six weeks. It is low cost, and I am going to help you every step of the way to get the clarity you need to build a simple profitable business. All right. Let's dive right in with this amazing conversation with Shira. All right, coaches. I'm so excited to have you here today, Shira. Welcome to the podcast. Shira Gill: Thank you. I'm happy to be here. Molly Claire: This is, it's so funny because I just can't believe I haven't had you on the podcast before. Shira Gill: I was gonna say thanks for having me back, and then I was like, I don't think I was here before, but I feel like I was. Molly Claire: I know we've known each other for a while and you taught in my group and everything. So anyway, I'm super excited you're here. I've got a copy of Shira's first book here. She's since created more, but we're just going to dive into the conversation. And I would love for you to start off telling my audience a little bit about you and where you started with your coaching business that's now evolved. Shira Gill: Yeah. So, it's funny. I'll see how I can make this fast. I had a career in theater for most of my life, and then I moved into event planning. When I was eight months pregnant, I got laid off from my event planning job and I just had no idea what I was going to do with my life, but I knew I had a new baby and I had to figure it out. And so I started a very tiny home organizing and decluttering business. It was really scrappy, but I found every woman, and especially every mother I came into contact with was overwhelmed by clutter and I just felt like I could help. It was something that I had always loved helping people declutter and clear their minds and simplify things in all of the ways. So I spent many years just helping women and busy families declutter their homes and get organized. And as part of that process, I found that coaching was so necessary. That people would hit roadblocks and feel overcome by emotion, or feel stuck, or paralyzed. Or shame would come up, or guilt would come up. And so that is how I ended up becoming a certified life coach is it just felt like a kind of organic next step in my career as an organizer. And now, I mean, I think as we'll discuss it has led me to so many different paths that I never really planned out. Molly Claire: As you were talking, I was thinking, for those of you listening, how important it is to notice, right? Where, Shira, where you started, then you did this. We really kind of don't know where things are going to go on our path. And I think sometimes we can have a tendency to criticize ourselves or see it as a bad thing when we shift. But I actually think it's a very natural process of tapping into our gifts and using them in different ways as we go through life, Shira Gill: Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I think my business has profoundly changed every few years and I've been in business 15 years. But there have been points where I was more of a coach than an organizer, and then more of a stylist than an organizer, and then more of a business strategist and now more of an author. As much as I am rooted in organization, I've never been one of those people that's like, "This is my five year plan or my 10 year plan." I've always just followed my energy and my interests and kind of seen how things evolve. When I do that, I've never gone wrong. Molly Claire: Which I think is also such a powerful thing for my listeners to hear and remember. Because we think we have this idea that more structure, more planning, more of that is better. Which is ironic, right? Because you're someone who helps people with structure and organization and yet, you allow yourself to be in the place that is the best, energetically, for you. Shira Gill: Yeah. So what I love to do is, I love to have some sort of construct and some boundaries. And then within that, I give myself total freedom. So like an example would be, I started a newsletter 14 years ago and I have been writing to my community every Tuesday. A post goes live at 5 AM. But what's really funny is some of the people I've mentored have said like, "Okay, like what are your content buckets and what's your strategy and how far do you map it out?" And I'm literally like, often I am writing that Tuesday post on Monday night, based on something somebody said to me at the supermarket. And so I think I really like creatively having a structure of here's what I'm going to do and here's what I'm going to commit to. But within that, giving myself total freedom and flexibility to kind of ride the wave of whatever seems interesting. Molly Claire: I mean, honestly, I've struggled with this very thing in many ways in part, because as you know, when you're setting up your business and wanting to have systems in place and you have the team that's like, "Okay, we're just going to plan everything a year in advance." And I'm like, we cannot totally do that because especially a business like, like ours, it's like a living, breathing thing. And we are so much a part of our business, right? Like I think as coaches, as many people that are in this space, listening to this podcast can relate to. Like, we are very much the energy of our business, right? And you just can't really plan all of that ahead. Shira Gill: No, you don't know what's going to happen in your life that might inform your work, right? Molly Claire: Yes. Yes. Shira Gill: You could go through a divorce, or you could have a loss that then completely changes the trajectory of what you're teaching or coaching about. That's impossible to plan. But I do think when your energy is aligned with what you're really fired up about, the world pays attention. I feel like, you know, whenever I'm like, "Oh, I should be doing this" and I kind of phone it in, nothing happens. But when I'm like, this was really bizarre, but I don't know why I'm super fired up about it. That's when things really take off for me. Molly Claire: Yes. Oh my gosh. This is such a good conversation. I can tell already, like, this is what so many coaches building their business need to hear. Shira Gill: I'm glad. Yeah. 'cause it took me a long time to kind of give myself that permission to be like, you know what? You could say you're a professional organizer, but you could also coach. You can also style. You can also do business mentorship, or write a book. Like, the world is your oyster when you're an entrepreneur. And I think just giving yourself that permission of like, I'm gonna find the flow and the alignment of what feels good and juicy and stimulating to me. Other people are going to react to that Molly Claire: Yeah. Yeah. Totally. And one thing I just want to point out to all of you listening, because I know as you were talking, Shira, about working with people and people having big emotions come up and shame and all of this. I've experienced the same thing when I've had someone help me organize my house. And I just want to like pause on that for those of you listening, because I know many of you feel that way in your life, in your house, and in your business too. And I just want to say that having shame about our perceived lack of organization, or things that need to be cleaned up is, it is normal, right? And like right here, I'm saying out loud, and I know all of you are relating to this. We all experience it. It's, we all have messes. We all have things to organize and maybe it's okay. Shira Gill: And maybe, just maybe- Molly Claire: Maybe it doesn’t mean that we're the worst person in the world or there's no hope for us. Shira Gill: I mean, what's so funny is that when I walk into someone's home and it's, you know, they feel such shame and such overwhelm showing me their home. Like I'm looking around and I'm looking for how do we improve this? How do we change it? How do we transform it? And so what's interesting is, I think organizers are never judging you or your clutter. They're looking for opportunity for transformation. And so I always say to people, like, if you can try to look at your home through that lens instead of the shame judgment lens, but of the, "how could I make this better? How could I do some subtle thing that's just going to move the needle?" That's the lens that we're all looking at your home through. Yeah. Molly Claire: Yeah. Right. Oh my gosh. And if we can all continue to change this lens for ourselves, it's yes. Shira Gill: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Molly Claire: Okay. So actress to event planning, organizing, adding the life coaching element and fast forward a little because you now are getting ready to write your third book or finishing or. Shira Gill: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It won't be out for a year because the process is so long, but yeah, I'm just wrapping up my third book. My second book came out about a month ago and again, like, back to the lack of planning. I never planned to be an author. And even it took me a few books in to call myself an author because it felt so, yeah, I guess I didn't have that identity. And it was something that happened really organically that I got this first book offer. And then after writing- my first book is called Minimalista and it really downloads everything I've learned in my decade-plus career, organizing homes all over the world. And as soon as I was done, I had another idea. And I thought, you know, wouldn't it be cool to showcase the homes of real professional organizers all over the world? So people could see how somebody lives in a studio apartment versus a big suburban home, somebody with five kids versus someone who lives alone. And so I pitched and sold that book. But again, like if you would ask me a year ago, you know, what are you going to do next? It never would have been travel the world interviewing professional organizers. I guess part of it is just creating some spaciousness in your brain so you can dream a little bit. Because I had that idea on a walk by myself and I was just kind of walking down the street and had this little light bulb moment. "Hey, wouldn't this book be cool?" And I pitched it and sold it. But I think often we're so head down in the grind of our businesses and our lives that there isn't that space to kind of dream of, "What could I create that would be really exciting?" Molly Claire: Yeah, and also I know in my experience that spaciousness, it's almost like the inspiration and possibilities just kind of like float in. This last summer, I took some extra space and time, which has never been something that's been easy for me, but I've gotten much better at it. And I spent just weeks doing more bike rides and hikes and all these things. And I can still remember, you know, when you were talking about that spaciousness. I actually had to remind myself recently that that spaciousness this summer is where the holistic master coach training was born.Because it's easy for us to think, and go back to, "Well, I need to work a little harder. I need to schedule a little more." And it's just not true. I think the most beautiful and some of our greatest gifts, I think that we have to offer the world, are born out of those spaces in time where we have space. Shira Gill: Totally. And I think, you know, back to organizing, some of organizing is just organizing having those empty spaces on your calendar. As opposed to kind of meticulously filling your calendar. It's, "Do I have time to take a walk by myself, or take a yoga class, or just sit and read or daydream?" And I think that planning for me, it doesn't happen unless I plan it because I'm a mom and a wife and an entrepreneur. And so my life can be so packed. That was one of the things actually that was born out of COVID that was really lovely is I just started taking a solo walk every morning for 45 minutes. And that is where like most of my juicy ideas come from, either on that solo walk or in the shower. But it is, it's never when I'm like head down with a computer, like trying to just crank out an idea. Molly Claire: Right. Let's force some inspiration out while I'm hunched over at the keyboard. Yeah. Shira Gill: Doesn't work. Molly Claire: And I have here your first book, Minimalista, and I know you spoke to my community of coaches and went through some of these basic principles, including your five step process. I would love for you to share that with my audience. Shira Gill: Yeah. It was interesting because, you know, you can be kind of head down working with clients for years and not realize that you have a process. And it was really like when I got this book deal and needed to write with structure about my work, I realized, "Oh, there is this simple, repeatable process that is applicable to anyone in any situation who wants to organize anything. And the process is this. So step one is to clarify. So I think a lot of people just say, "I need to get organized," you know, but organization isn't really the means to an end. It's a tool you can use to create something. And so I always start with the clarity of why? Why do you want to organize this specific thing or why do you want to organize your home or your life right now? What's the real goal? Once you've figured that out, and even you can make that really micro, like maybe it's, "I want to organize my junk drawer so I can find a pen or a tool easily when I need to." So you just want to get really granular with, "Why am I doing this?" before you do anything. So then step two is to edit. You know, the same as decluttering. And that's where I spend 90 percent of my time is just coaching people through the editing process because that's really where people get stuck and overwhelmed is those tough roadblocks like, "well, somebody gave this to me," or it's worth a lot of money, or, "What if I need it?" So editing is the process of deciding simply what are you going to keep and what are you going to get rid of? And you can do that in your life, or you can do that with your junk drawer, or you can do that with your whole house. But it's really getting very thoughtful, and I think it really turns into kind of a values exercise of, "What am I trying to do or create? And are these things serving me and getting me closer to that vision? Or are they just creating more clutter and distraction?" Molly Claire: I'm going to ask you really quick, because I think anyway, in this editing process, You think about each item in that space, right? And make an actual decision about it. It's not like you just start taking things out of the space. Is that right? Shira Gill: Yes, thank you. That's a very important clarification. So yeah, so when I'm editing, to use the junk drawer as an example, you would take everything out of the junk drawer, you'd wipe down the drawer so it's empty and clear, and then you're deciding, with the big pile of stuff on your counter, what is worthy of going back in the junk drawer. I then rebrand it and call it a utility drawer because we don't want a drawer full of junk. So, you know, in mine, or when I create a junk drawer, utility drawer for a client, it's like thinking about what are the grab and go things that you actually need access to on a daily basis. Or if you're doing the drawer in your desk or your workspace, what are the supplies and the tools I need to be the best coach I can be? Maybe it's just a laptop and headphones and something to write on and you realize all the other office supplies are just distraction and you don't use them. So it is making those decisions of what am I keeping? What am I getting rid of? Once you've done that, then step three is to organize. And I think people really overcomplicate organization. The way that I teach it is organization is simply grouping like things together, similar things grouped together, and each group has a designated home. So in the junk drawer, you're taking all the rubber bands and you're putting them in one place together. You're taking all the pens and you're putting them in one place together. Then it's really easy for your brain to process when you open that drawer and you need a pen or a rubber band, right? Because instead of a big pile of disarray, you're just seeing big, broad categories grouped together. So, that step, if you've done a good job with your editing, organizing should be very, very easy. I think where people really get lost with organizing is organizing their clutter instead of first decluttering, and then only organizing what's left and what's really purposeful and valuable. Molly Claire: Yeah. Almost like I'm imagining confusing step two and three. So it's like, okay, I have clarity. I know why I want this. Now I'm going to dive into this big mess and start organizing this and throwing things out along the way. Shira Gill: Yes, or really what people mainly do is they get clear and then they run out to the container store and they buy a million bins and baskets and pads because they're like, "I'm getting organized." So that comes after decluttering and organizing. I call it elevating. It's an optional step, but it's a fun step. And so once you've edited and organized. Maybe then you decide, I want to get pretty wooden organizers for my drawer so that everything can be plopped in, you know, a nice boundary vessel, or maybe I've decluttered my closet and now I want to invest in one beautiful set of matching hangers. So, for some people, these kind of elevating the space really makes a difference and helps them maintain it. Other people will say to me, "Nope, I'm good. I just want to be able to find my stuff." So that's why I say it's an optional part of the process. And then the last step is just maintaining your work. And so I always say, you know, life isn't static. There's no one and done solution. So once you've edited and organized and elevated your space, there's still going to be stuff coming into your house. You're still going to get mail to process, laundry to do, gifts during the holidays. And so maintenance is really about maintaining the equilibrium of your space with following a one in one out rule, or taking a purchase pause and really limiting the volume that comes through the front door. Or even just saying like once a season, I'm going to do a big decluttering session with my family. So those are the five steps, and they're really simple, but they're not always easy. Molly Claire: Yeah. What's your biggest tip for, because I'm guessing most people listening, certainly I'm in this camp, have had an area or a thing or something that got organized or cleaned up, maybe it's cleaned up, right? But then it's not building in the habits to maintain it or doubting, like telling ourselves, "Well, I can't maintain it. I can't be consistent. I'm too busy." What's, what's your best tip or two to help people really think about maintaining in a different way or be effective with it? Shira Gill: Yeah. Organizers have this saying, don't put it down, put it away. You know, it sounds kind of obnoxious, but it's really true that, like I think about, you know, coming in with my kids and my dog and my husband, and we could all just throw our stuff down on the floor, or we could take that extra two seconds to put the jacket on the hook and the shoes in the shoe bin and the mail in the basket. So I've timed myself because I've gotten pushback on this, that it actually takes the same amount of time to put things away than to just dump them all over your house. And so, That's what I try to convince people of is like the compound effect of having that good habit of putting things away instead of just dumping them is going to make your life so much easier and is going to create so much more time and energy and freedom and productivity. So it is like just pausing in those transitional moments, whether it's finishing a meal and taking the dishes and loading the dishwasher, or if it's the laundry's done and the last thing you want to do is fold the laundry and put it away. But thinking of all of those little transitional moments of like, "This is a gift to my future self instead of waking up to a pile of laundry and dirty dishes, I'm going to wake up to a clean slate and my home is going to feel good and I'm going to be able to start fresh." So it's finding some sort of bigger motivation. Like for me, I know if my house feels messy and cluttered, my brain feels messy and cluttered and I won't be as effective as a mom or a friend or an entrepreneur. So that kind of drives my motivation to be like, I'm just going to take those extra two seconds. And I find if you can really integrate those habits into the day to day flow of your life, it will prevent you from ever having the big mountain. Nobody wants to face a big mountain or spend their time on a weekend culling through piles. So that's my other kind of motivation is like, if you do the thing quickly now, then you're going to gain a weekend to relax. Molly Claire: Yeah, yeah, I want to speak to this a little bit because as I'm listening, I know for sure where my biggest stumbling block has typically been - and what I see with a lot of my clients as well - and I'm going to speak to this in terms of the decluttering and organization, but it also moves over into the business space, in my opinion. Which is, it's that element of time, right? We all think we're too fast. I don't have time. I'm too much in a rush. And I think, you know, in terms of business, and those of you listening that often have this thought, "I'm behind," "I need to be doing more," and we feel like we're in a race or a rush, like we're never going to get there. Yeah. And I'm just convinced, I know I can say for myself, that the more I bring my nervous system down, bring like everything down, right? Slow the emotions, be present, and remember that, like I always say, go slow to go fast, right? When we can build in that pause, like you said - and this goes for all of you in terms of your daily life - giving yourself permission to slow down and believing that it's beneficial for me is for sure step one. And I think sometimes even if we just do that one thing, right? If we just, "Okay, what if I could slow down? What if I could take the time? What if I'm not in a hurry? What if it's all going to be okay?" I think that's when it is almost like we create a little more stillness, and a little more willingness to put the thing away. Shira Gill: Totally. Molly Claire: To do those things that are going to make us be more effective with our time, which ultimately gives us more energy and moves us forward faster in everything that we do. Shira Gill: Yeah. A million percent. I think it's like getting out of that hustle, panting, racing energy and you can actually be more productive and efficient when you are calm and your nervous system is calm. And I'm a person who's like busy, busy, go, go, go. I have to remind myself nothing good ever happens when you're racing. Racing is not the right energy. Molly Claire: That's right. I know. Well, it's like, I always remember hearing this idea. Like, there's nothing that's an emergency in life coaching. There's just not. Right? Like, with my, sometimes with my team, something will get messed up and it's delayed or they're like, "I'm so sorry this came up". I'm like, there's no emergency, right? Our family and personal situations come first, and if something gets messed up and it puts us behind, that's okay, we can move the deadline. Even in terms of, you were talking about you being someone who typically is in a rush and a hurry, right? So as we're recording this, of course, it's beginning of December. We're getting closer to Christmas. Last week I noticed myself in my old pattern of cramming too much in, expecting too much of myself. It just, it was like a head down, no space, just like suffocating myself. Fridays I always do a check in. I was working with my coach and I was like, "Okay, you know what? This weekend needs to be full of space. Full of space. That is it. No work. And next week I'm going to bring space into my week." And I felt it. And it's interesting how nothing on my to do list is different last week versus this week, right? And it feels so open and so easy and so doable because I decided that space mattered. Shira Gill: Totally. It's what my third book is about, is about how to edit and organize your life to create more spaciousness. Because we're, myself- and writing the book that I need to read as well. Molly Claire: Yeah, isn't that always the way it goes? Shira Gill: Yeah, but I think it is, like, I've noticed I have a friend who does a digital detox every weekend and she actually works in tech and she's a filmmaker. But every weekend from Friday night to Saturday night. She unplugged. She can't be on her phone or her computer. And she said then when she gets plugged back in, it's like she is so clear headed, so efficient, so productive from having that break. From like, going to the beach and reading and hanging out at home. It's really like the only way you can recharge your batteries is by slowing down. Molly Claire: Yeah, that's right. And it just seems so hard to do, but I think you can get better. I've definitely gotten better at it. I don't know about you, but I've gotten much better at it. Shira Gill: I have, it's a practice. It's, you know, we're all works in progress. But I think it is- and again, it comes from that clarity at the beginning of deciding you want more spaciousness. I think I'm a person who prides myself on being so busy and go, go, go. And so it's almost an identity shift to say, actually, I want to have more spaciousness. I want to occasionally rest. Like, rest is such a dirty word in our culture. So yeah, it's starting with that intentionality and then creating organizational systems around that goal so that you know every day at this time I get my solo walk or I get my mindfulness 15 minutes or whatever the case may be. Molly Claire: Yes. Oh my gosh, I feel like we could have a whole episode about like space and rest being a dirty word because it's so true. It's like we wear busyness as a badge of honor, and achievement, and accomplishment, and doing. And we complain about not having any time in our life as if we're proud of it. And so I think that is a whole other topic, right? But I think that, I really, just this last week, as I've been consciously, this entire year, up leveling again, like, okay, making my ability to have space even better and even more. And I was just looking in my house yesterday and we have the Christmas stuff up and everything's fairly calm and still. And I'm like, all of this is here. Not because I've been you know, pushing and hustling, but because I've decided specifically to make space for this stillness. Shira Gill: Exactly. I know. It's such a perfect time with the holidays and the new year to really reconsider how you want to live. I'm hosting right now a Declutter Your Life challenge through my sub stack, and every week there's new prompts. And one of the prompts is just schedule time to do nothing. And people are like, "What? You can do that?" So I think it's the only way I'll ever do it is if it's on my calendar and I put in like big red, "do not schedule anything here" because otherwise I will. I'll just fill it up. Molly Claire: I know, I know, I have, you can't see it, but on my wall, I have this enormous wall calendar. It's a dry erase wall calendar. And the primary reason for that is that I block out my chunks of time, like, color them all the way in to just show my brain, this is the time that you are off. Shira Gill: So good. Yeah. So good. Yes. Molly Claire: Okay. So I want to wrap up here and in just a minute, of course, I want to have you tell everyone where they can find you. But I wanted to ask you one last question, as far as, I know we talked about this a little bit before we started recording , and this is something I encourage my clients to do, but I would love to hear your take on this or how you approach this idea of having enough structure or organization in, but really allowing that flexibility. I know we kind of already spoke to it, but I would love to hear your thoughts and wisdom on this. Shira Gill: Yeah. So I, as an entrepreneur, I always like to theme my days. So I like to batch things. So I will have specific days when I see clients and I know those are my client days. I have a specific day when I do my content, like, anything I'm creating. And then I have a specific day for admin. And I always like to have a specific day that I just call like my creative day. So that can be meeting with someone, networking, having a coffee, just walking around the city and like daydreaming. So for me, having that structure where it's like, I know if somebody wants to book me, I see clients on Tuesdays and Thursdays, right? So it's never like getting out the calendar and going, "Oh gosh, okay, let's look at Monday." It's really concrete. And likewise, if someone says like, we want to interview you, or could we do a photo shoot? I know Wednesday's my like, creative collab day. That's like my big kind of overarching advice is if you can, especially because as entrepreneurs, we have to create our own structure from nothing. There's no telling us, right? I have found that very grounding and anchoring to give myself these containers. And so my example of that is like, I know when I'm seeing clients. I know when I'm creating content. I know when I'm invoicing and doing all the boring admin stuff. And then also in terms of marketing, knowing whether it's a podcast or a newsletter, what are you doing and when are you doing it? And scheduling both the time to produce it and dream about it. And then also having the consistent day or days per week or month that, you know, you're broadcasting that thing. So I think you really stick to that formula of kind of batching. Then within that you can be super loose and creative about what the actual content is. Molly Claire: Yes. I love it. That's perfect. Shira Gill: Oh, good. Molly Claire: All right, Shira. This has been so great. Tell everyone where they can find you, where they can get your books. Shira Gill: Yeah, great. So, my website is just my name, shiragill.com, and there's tons of free resources, courses, my books are there. My two books that are out right now are Minimalista and Organized Living. You can buy them anywhere books are sold all over the world. So, Amazon, to your little mom and pop independent store, you should be able to buy or order them. And, I'm also on Substack. I have a free newsletter and host lots of fun decluttering challenges there. So you can find me on Substack as well. Molly Claire: Amazing. Thank you again so much for your time. This is Shira Gill: Thanks for having me. This was so fun. Molly Claire: thanks. We'll have to do it again.

Outro: Thanks for listening to the masterful coach podcast. Are you ready to build your amazing business with Molly as your coach? Check out www.MollyClaire.com to find out about Masterful Coach Foundations and the 10K Accelerator method. It's the ultimate support for you as a coach building your ideal life and business.