Being vs. Doing – Callum Wilson, Elaine Lajuenesse, and Miriam Gunn

Callum, Elaine, Miriam, Pt 1

 [00:00:00] I’m super excited to try something incredibly different, at least for me. I enjoyed doing all of the interviews, but I also think that the format was getting a little bit stale.

And so we are going to spend the next three months doing something a little bit different. I’m going to have conversations in here between high level coaches. I’m going to have examples of coaching.

And I might do snippets from other interviews that I have been a part of, or even other interviews that I’ve done.

It’s going to be a little bit of a free for all. And I would love to hear from you guys what it is that you enjoy or don’t enjoy of this new format.

So this next interview or conversation actually.

Is part of a larger 90 minute conversation that my friend, Callum Wilson, Elaine whose last name I can’t say because she’s French Canadian and is wonderfully French [00:01:00] and myself- we are going to have a conversation about being versus doing, and you might think, well, what does this have to do with self-development or business?

Actually it has everything to do with it.

And i know as astute listeners you will be able to make the translation as to how this can benefit your life. So welcome.

[00:01:22] Introductions

Miriam Gunn: My name is Miriam Gunn and I live in the Western United States. I am a transformational coach, primarily for entrepreneurs and high performers, and I’m so excited for this conversation.

Elaine Lajuenesse: Awesome, Elaine. Okay. I’m Elaine Naes and I’m starting to own the word coach. And I don’t know that I have a label, like I know I say executive coach, but I, I love change, so maybe I’m transformation and I’ve just heard last week that I was a life coaching, which kind of really kind of puzzled me cuz I don’t think I’m a life coach, but maybe I.[00:02:00]

Callum Wilson: Cool. Yeah. I’m Callum. I help people beat all of themselves so they can create deep happiness and high performance. In what ways? I do that a bit like Elaine. I’m not too sure. It’s a mixture of a lot of things. But yeah, it’s, it’s about helping people create that deep happiness and high performance that I think comes from embodying all of them themselves.

Okay. So my, my topic was “purpose”. And I wanted to start by asking you both what purpose means to you.

So maybe Elaine, what, what does purpose mean to you?

Meaning of Purpose

Elaine Lajuenesse: That’s such a great question. For me it’s a, it means to serve

because first too long I’ve just been grinding. Mm-hmm. In, in the second purpose for me is to have real conversation. I [00:03:00] am so fed up with the superficial conversation where I was just reading a post today about somebody saying, you know, you answer, how are you with fine, without even thinking.

and what I love about what I do now is people show up, how they show up, no filters. I’m lucky my client trusts me, but. This is so refreshing and I’m feeling that y I yearn, is it yearn, is it an English word? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yearning to, to really just have this conversation all the time. Like, I meet somebody and I’m going deep into how are you in what’s going on in your life?

So that’s the purpose for me.

Miriam Gunn: Mm.

I appreciate that. I love that so much. I, this a quote is attributed to all sorts of people mark Twain and quite a few other people, but -The [00:04:00] two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day, you know why?

And I think that so many people are struggling with this question of purpose. Why am I on this planet?

And I, I don’t think it becomes acute until you hit midlife. Definitely younger people are asking the question, what am I gonna do? But it seems like as you mature into a different space, it, it shifts from what am I gonna do to who am I gonna be and why?

Why am I here?

[00:04:37] Why am I here?

Miriam Gunn: So one of the things that I think is A pro thought provoking, a provocative kind of exercise is to look at your lifespan and to see what sort of things have I done consistently throughout my lifespan. And that gives insight into purpose, you know, and you find that some [00:05:00] people will say, well, this was my job in my twenties and this was my job and this was my job.

But all through those times I was doing this activity.

And I think that’s my calling, which I find kind of purpose and calling are an interesting dialogue between those two words.

What do you think, Cal?

Callum Wilson: Yeah. Oh, I I guess I wanted to bring it up because I wanted to have a better, I wanted to think about it myself, to be honest, cuz I wasn’t too sure.

And I think purpose for me, I think the number one, probably human purpose is happiness.

A and the second one is a contribution, which is in line with what Elaine said about service, really. Mm-hmm.

But in line with what you said, Miriam, I think that happiness comes from being not doing. So if I had happiness and [00:06:00] contribution as my two, or the purposes that I, the, the first one happiness comes from being from, from being my true self.

Contribution

And then the second bit contribution, I don’t necessarily think I could decide it for myself because so much of this just comes from, I can’t like think, oh yeah, I’m gonna be I’m gonna contribute like this, this, and this. I, I think nature kind of just tells me how I’m gonna do it, you know? So I let, it’s kind of like letting nature tell me what I’m gonna do and I can’t really describe that other than a feeling.

A lot of my ideas just come out of the middle of nowhere, don’t really feel like I own them. So happiness through being and contribution through whatever I’m kind of being guided towards.

 Does that ring any bells with anyone here?

Elaine Lajuenesse: Like to me it’s a challenge. I have to be very honest cuz I spend so many years in business where being is made [00:07:00] very, very small.

Like everyone tells you that they want you to bring your, their authentic self to work. That’s not really true. That’s a dirty little secret there. But the reality is that you get really busy with doing a lot of things, and some of them make you happy. I was really happy when I had a busy day. I was less happy when it was a grinding day where it’s, let’s just go through the motion and doing all that activity that, you know, add no values.

So, so, and, and I, a lot of my clients, because we coach people are like us. I’m, my clients are all here and not at all here. And I’m learning to trust that part a lot more. But it’s a very difficult challenge. It’s hard to be, it’s hard to be, it’s really easy to think. Yeah.

Practice Being Authentic

Miriam Gunn: Yeah. I would agree with that. I think it takes practice to learn how to be, unless your parents [00:08:00] have taught you that space.

Going back to what you were saying, Cal, and then I want to bounce back to your comments, Elaine. This notion of, is your purpose created by you or is it in you and discovered by you, or is it, you know, out there? And the universe creates God, in the universe, creates, you know, scenarios. That’s a very thought-provoking and challenging thing for me to wrap my brain around.

I come from a deeply held spiritual tradition that would say God has placed in you a purpose and it’s your life’s exercise to discover it. And of course, other people think and believe very different things and but I will bounce into that space.

I’m gonna use the word joy more than happiness. When you are living out your purpose, you experience joy.

I would, I would, yeah just like [00:09:00] wave a flag over that for sure. You know, for each of you, when have you experienced that happiness or joy where you were like, oh, I’m doing what I was meant to do, or being who I was meant to be.

[00:09:19] Who am I Meant to Be?

Callum Wilson: Yeah. Well, my, my answer is pretty much the second question that you asked, like, being who I’m meant to be. That is when I feel joy and it, it doesn’t really matter what I’m doing. My deepest joy is that unfiltered version of myself where I’m giving all of me to the situation. And I’m not, it’s not, I’m not thinking like, what’s the best for me?

What am I gonna do here? I’m just like, from a place of being, I’m just doing, I’m not kind of having to, there’s nothing personal about that, that space for me. And just to link back, I think to probably what Elaine was was saying about the, [00:10:00] the kind of, I know you come from a business background, Elaine, and, and like my experience in sport is, is is pretty intense as well.

And there’s just, they don’t care who you are being, like, they’ll pick awful people least authentic versions as long as they get results.

So I think you sort of mentioned it’s very hard to come from the being, but for me, like I, I lacked the courage to, to be the type of person I wanted to be during my career.

I was so worried about what people thought about what I was doing. I forgot about being entirely almost, and I. I was sort of like being who I thought other people wanted to be, to be. And I, and the funny, funny thi thing with that is like over a long cur, over a longer period of time that actually reduced my performance.

Being All of You

So in some ways I kind of lacked the courage to be myself, which actually dropped the performance, which is what I was being judged on any how. [00:11:00] So it’s kind of a funny situation, but I didn’t really have the courage to, to bring all of me to it, to say what I thought to play, really to play the way I wanted to play.

I was so worried about what other people thought of it. It became a filtered version of me. So yeah. Ellen, I, I know Miriam asked us a question there, if you wanna grab a hold of that.

Elaine Lajuenesse: so it’s an interesting question. Cuz like you Callum I used to to say, I don’t care what business I lead, as long as I lead people.

And that was my happy place. Mm-hmm. And I would say that for most of my career, I was trying, I was really, judged. I was, I guess my assessment from my boss was the overriding, I was judging my worth based on the fact that he was, oh, he or she told me that I was meeting expectation or exceeding expectation.

And if I was [00:12:00] not exceeding expectation, it was devastating.

Expectations

And then to your point, Miriam, when I got to my fifties and I said, screw that. Like I’m not letting one person determining if I’m good or not, or if I’m doing the right thing or not. There was a lot of freedom that came with that, and then it didn’t get attached to will they fire me?

Most likely. Hmm. But am I doing the right thing for the team, for the organization and for myself and sometimes in that order? Absolutely. And was, I had, like, I decided at some point that there was two things that I wanted to, to really be. The first one is I wanted to be able to look at the person in the mirror and feel joy or proud.

And the other thing is that I wanted to treat people the way that I wanted to be treated. Yeah. [00:13:00] And, and I didn’t even think it was courageous cause they just said, okay, I w wouldn’t have been able to do this at 24.

[00:13:08] Being vs. Doing

Miriam Gunn: You know, Elaine, what you’re saying when Cal was talking and now when you were talking, I’m so curious.

I wish I could put you guys in an a functional m r I machine when you’re really being, versus when you’re doing and seeing which parts of the brain light up.

And when you say, Elaine, I couldn’t do that as a 24 year old. I, I just don’t think our brains are even fully developed and what makes me think, you know, bouncing into your story, Cal, I’m wondering who was yelling at you in the midst of all of this rugby- coaches and other players and the expectations and there was no emotional safety and being able to be versus [00:14:00] do requires some form of emotional safety that you then either you- each of us has created that by pulling out of those various spaces and saying, this is toxic and I’m gonna do something different.

I do think people manage to stay in organizations and create their own safety, but that’s something I’m thinking about is how do we create psychological safety so that we can be our best selves, and how do we create that for the people around us so that we can serve and help them be their best selves?

That’s something that this conversation is kind of stirring in me

Elaine Lajuenesse: and, and to me. You know, you didn’t ask me, but I’ll just jump in. This is how

Miriam Gunn: we’re doing this. We’re, we’re all jumping in to,

Elaine Lajuenesse: to me, this is these two principles that I mentioned, like looking at yourself and treating others the way you wanna be treated.

Being Yourself

Mm. To me, this is how you do [00:15:00] it. That’s how you create safety. Mm-hmm. And, and delivering on what you say.

Miriam Gunn: Mm, keeping your word. Keeping your words.

Yeah.

Callum Wilson: I, I couldn’t I kind of wanna, I don’t wanna retract what I said, but I wanna make it clear that like, I, I, I feel like I lack the courage to be myself.

Don’t think there’s anything toxic, per se within rugby. I, I think it was, it was me. I wouldn’t like to blame anyone else cuz no one said, I, I think I kind of, I mean, hmm. I’m gaining experiences throughout my life that have led me to potentially see things. But at, at, at the end of the day, I, I, I don’t believe in sort of determinism.

I think I, I can be who I want to be in every moment, and I chose not to be the fullest version of myself. So yeah. I, but I think when I, think about where that came from I, there’s undercurrents in it, in, in, in a [00:16:00] lot of we’ve already spoken about this, but maybe I, I’ve sort of mentioned this to the group, that like in Western cultures, a lot of it is around you kind of, you feel more able, more loved and more complete as a result of doing things.

You’re constantly getting rewarded for doing, doing, doing. And so by the time I got to rugby, cuz I’m not coming, I wasn’t coming from a place of like, I’m complete, I don’t need to prove myself, what you might call abundance. Cuz I wasn’t coming from that place. I was constantly feeling incomplete and feeling like I needed to do things to get there.

Self-Approval

And then, because other people were, because that that doing was being judged by other people in my mind, not through self approval, which is that looking in the mirror, that self approval part. I, I was kind of like flipping, flipping a coin in heads or tails, whether it was gonna be. I was gonna feel good after doing or not because it was someone else’s opinion.

And, and really I think the answer for me would be like, if I understood that I was enough as a [00:17:00] base and then, and then whatever I did in terms of actions, I could, if I could have judged it myself through self approval, that would’ve been, that would’ve been the key to me to get into that. Like deep joy coming from enough and then self approval of the doing.

Whereas I kind of externalized a lot of it and lost control of my ability to feel happy in myself and feel happy about my performance. Like sometimes I knew I played well and then someone would be like, oh, no, you didn’t, and it would make you cr crumble. Or I play badly, and someone would be like, oh, you played really well.

And I’ll change how I, I literally changed how I valued myself between then and the next game, which is like, it’s a crazy way to live.

Knowing You’re Enough

And, and what, what, you know, just to, just to explain, I was like, so I, I know you guys are, so in North America, there’s not heaps of rugby, but like, I was playing rugby and I wasn’t playing because I was excited to do things.

I was, [00:18:00] well, like, oh, I really want to throw that pass. I was like, I’m worried about what people are gonna say if I mess this up. So, mm-hmm. That’s, that’s what was going on for me. I was, I was so worried about mistakes, which is coming from complete lack. It’s all ego, it’s all, it’s coming from complete scarcity.

Whereas if I could have come from a place of knowing I was enough, because, you know, like, you guys are enough, you don’t need to prove yourselves to me. The postman doesn’t need to prove themselves to me. Why am I the only person in the world that needs to prove themselves to me? Yeah. De that’s sort of my chain of thought.

I dunno if anyone’s got any resonance

Miriam Gunn: with that.

[00:18:35] The Game of Life

Miriam Gunn: Yeah, no, I have some questions that I wanna ask and of course you can defer, but I, I think each of us finds us in places that are similar, different context. You know, I haven’t played rugby, but I’ve definitely been in that game where I’m wondering what the other person’s going to think and, you know, I play big or small based on that.

What changed for you or what helped you understand this is the way [00:19:00] I am playing and I wanna play differently? Not rugby, but the game of life.

Callum Wilson: Hmm. I realized that it’s funny, but I got injured and had to change career, but I dunno if i’d, I dunno when I would’ve got there in my rugby career, but leaving it, I was like, I don’t want to be in that situation again mentally.

And someone mentioned already that freedom. I didn’t create mental freedom for myself. That’s on me. I didn’t have the courage to have mental freedom. But leaving it and going on this journey, even at the start of coaching, I was very like remedial with how I was going about it. You will do this and that will make you happy, hard work works, all of this sort of stuff.

And as I’ve just gone deeper, I guess the answer for me is realizing that like, this is gonna get deep, but I think we’re probably all the same thing. Really. Like not feeling separate to the world, but feeling part of it allows me to be myself really. I don’t, when I think [00:20:00] of myself as this individual, life can get really hard.

Being More of Yourself

But when I think about us as a collective and just expressing us all coming from. In, in some form of unity. It allows me to be myself more so I think living life a lot less personally. If that, if you see what I mean. Actually Elaine, just I’ll hand over to you, but you said when you are at your best, you do the right thing for all.

Like when you grew in those environments and you were doing the right thing for the organization or what felt right. That’s exactly it. It’s not thinking about you singular. It’s like us. As soon as I start thinking like that, I can really, yeah. It’s not about me anymore. And I can give I love that you said doing the right thing for all allowed you to be sort of like, look in the mirror.

I can’t remember the exact quote, but I think that’s what you’re getting at. Am I right in thinking about

Elaine Lajuenesse: Yeah, I think you’re right. I think it’s just, it’s, it’s about feeling like, to me it was getting out of my head like, [00:21:00] so what if this particular boss doesn’t value what I bring? I don’t know what they want, but I see how they behave and that’s not the behavior that I wanna do.

And if, for me to be successful in this environment, I have to be that way. I don’t wanna do, I don’t wanna get on that train. Hmm. And I’ve seen a lot of clients do this like, I don’t know about you, but like I have a, it’s not even client colleagues where, you know, their boss asks them to do something that’s totally against their grain, totally against their value.

Place of Fear

Because they come from a place of fear. They do it, it impacts their brand. You know, and I, that’s one of the things I teach now to people. Like even if your boss is the biggest asshole of this planet, and I’m sorry, but French speaking, not really get offended with words like this. And you still have a [00:22:00] choice of how you execute their ask.

You can be like them or you can be different. Mm. You’re still doing what they want, but the how is always in your control. Mm-hmm. But that’s something I didn’t really appreciate until I detached myself from wanting to be loved and appreciated by the person who owned the pen on my paycheck.

Mm-hmm.

Callum Wilson: Miriam, have you got any thoughts?

[00:22:37] Locus of Control

Miriam Gunn: Well, both of you are talking about, I’m gonna use the word internal and external locus of control. Where are we saying ownership of our lives exists. You know, is ownership of Miriam is a worthwhile person? Does that exist outside of me? In other  words, you know, Cal, if you say, I suck, or Elaine, if you say, I don’t like you anymore, does that mean I’m a terrible person?

That would be external locus of control. Internal locus of control is I know who I am and I know what I bring, and my desire is to bring goodness to each of you. You know, it’s a completely different feeling. And I think each of you have referenced that in a variety of different ways. It’s something I think about all the time.

Am I outsourcing my, I don’t really like to use the word power, but maybe my power to act or my power to choose. Am I outsourcing that or am I continuing to move that inside and say, I get to choose how I respond. I get to choose how I act or don’t act. I get to choose.

And I really don’t think unless you’re taught that so many of us don’t get to that space until midlife, which I [00:24:00] think is a shame.

Why, why were we not taught this? You know,

Elaine Lajuenesse: a lot of teenagers are, are teenagers and young adult are lacking so much confidence. And it’s not because they grew up in a big family like me, where, you know, you needed to, whoever were the fittest with us or wherever, survival mode, not survival because you’re not loved, but just that, you know, there’s not that much attention on, on any of us.

Opportunities

Like in my life, when I look around in the, in, you know, I’ve, I’ve mentored a lot of very young people, like in their early twenties to early to early thirties. There’s a lack of belief in themself. They have options that we never dreamed of. And really, it’s really interesting to see. I was you know, I don’t know if I, if [00:25:00] she’s not a she’s a friend and she’s a new mother, and I just ha just heard to say I am a great mother, and I forced her to say it and she was crying.

She’s like a wonderful mother and she, like any kid would be happy to have her as a mother. So I guess I agree with you, Miriam, that it’s hard to do when you’re in your twenties and thirties and I don’t understand it. They have so much more opportunity. They’re so much con, much more connected and there’s, they seem to be somewhat less materialistic and, and sometimes

Miriam Gunn: more, I guess.

Callum Wilson: Yeah, it’s interesting. A lot of people around my age, I’m 32, are, I don’t know if lockdown and Covid really might have actually sped up this process

I think it’s also the thing that allows you to eventually be yourself cuz you’re just like whatever. I don’t like I’m fed up of, of living up to other people’s expectations. And I, [00:26:00] I think Covid showed a lot of people like, geez, I was about to go down a 20, 30 year career, which wasn’t gonna be on my term.

So like, right. I’m just gonna create something new.

[00:26:11] Moving Forward

Callum Wilson: So I’m having a lot of those types of conversations with people in their early thirties, which I think is probably quite early. It’s almost like a midlife crisis, but slightly before midlife. I wrote down that I think, I think just love for people in general is, is, is so conditional in our world and I think that is a massive problem from the day you go to school.

It’s like you are valued more or less according to your skill level in maths or whatever. And you are literally made to feel more special and more worthy according to results.

And I think that conditional way of being I, I, I, I, I prefer the idea of instead of approving doing, I prefer the idea of appreciating being, and if we can [00:27:00] always appreciate people being themselves.

And I feel like that is a key to us moving forward in a world where people don’t get stuck in these states of like, proving themselves or worrying so much about what other people think. If they just felt great because they are great. Cuz everyone deep down is like, we’re all this, we’re all in this together.

If they could all feel that unconditional love, I, I think that would allow a lot of us to express our best selves. And then I thought it was really interesting, Elaine, you said it’s about how you do things and and, and you were talking about the boss could tell you what to do, and then it’s, you get to choose how to, how you respond.

And part of me almost tackles that question, thinking about like who you respond as.

Egos

When your ego flares up, you can either respond from that place worrying about what they think inside you is like all that she, the shadow version of Callum.

Or it can be, I’m doing this cuz it’s right. No matter what [00:28:00] you think about it.

So I agree it can, you can do the same thing, but it just comes from a different place. One comes from your head and one comes from your heart.

My experience is actually when you, when it comes from the true self, like when it comes from your heart, it’s normally filled with energy.

And when it comes from like bowing down to a, a boss or an intimidating person or whatever, it’s an energy taker.

So I, I found that quite interesting. Thought.

Elaine Lajuenesse: Should we talk about love because

Callum Wilson: Yeah. Okay.

Miriam Gunn: You know, because Sounds good to me.

Okay guys. I hope you’ve found that to be interesting and thought provoking.

I split the episode here, stay tuned next week. We’ll drop the same group of people talking about love. I enjoyed this conversation so much and i hope you did as well.

 

End Credits

 

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Full audio episode found here.

Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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Music by Tom Sherlock.

If you are curious to know more, please contact me!

As someone who has been a therapist for over a decade and has been coaching people for over three decades, I am uniquely qualified to address your concerns.

Managing Your Time and Money – Miriam Gunn

 Hey friends, today’s interview is a little bit unusual in that I’m the one being interviewed.

this is an excerpt from the podcast Launchpad with Kelly Smith. We had a lively conversation about

how the undisciplined use of time and money really sabotages yourself and ways that you can do something different.

If you would like to hear the full episode, you can look in the show notes and the link to that will be there.

I hope you enjoy this conversation we had.

Kelly: Welcome to the podcast launchpad, where you’ll learn the tools you need to use your podcast to be a go-to expert in your field, expand your audience, and get more clients. I’m your host Kelly. Enjoy the show

I am really excited to chat with today’s guest because we’re gonna talk about how the undisciplined use of time and money creates stress in our business and in our podcast journey.

Miriam Gunn has fostered growth in others since 1985 as a mentor, a licensed therapist, and a certified coach. Currently, she’s passionate about helping businesses and high performers become successful so they can add their influence to this amazing world we share.

[00:00:43] Why a Coach?

Kelly: So tell us a little about your background and why you decided to become a coach.

Miriam: Well, I, I mean, if I go way, way back, I was mentoring university students, and did that for about 25 years. And in the context of that, so many [00:01:00] times they needed a therapist and I would join them and go with them to therapy or help them figure it out.

And at a certain point I said, why don’t I get this degree?

I look at therapy as, let’s look back and figure out where we got off our path and let’s fix some of that stuff back there. And I look at coaching as, let’s look forward to where we wanna go and land.

And so at that point I got a certification in, coaching- began working with people, loved it, and found out that the people I liked the most to work with were entrepreneurs because entrepreneurs know how to take action, which really is at the heart of coaching.

Then at that point, I got another certification in business coaching specifically, just so I could better serve the business owners I was working with.

Kelly: That’s fantastic.

[00:01:49] The Undisciplined Use of Time and Money

Kelly: So would you give us some examples of the undisciplined use of time or money or other resources?

Miriam: Sure. Let’s, let’s go with two versions of the undisciplined [00:02:00] use of time and then I’ll bounce into the money space.

There is the undisciplined use of time that creates issues, negative issues for the person, like they’re just not good at leaving margin, or they have a magical thinking about what can be done in five minutes. Usually what can be done in five minutes is not a four point list.

So the, the, the five point lists can’t be done in five minutes.

But if you just say, I’m not gonna try and do any of those things. I’m gonna get my keys, I’m gonna get my things. I’m gonna sit in the car for 10 seconds and think, did I leave anything at home before you zip out of the driveway to do your stuff?

That’s a space that really helps people not get frantic. When you’re frantic, you’re secreting adrenaline and cortisol, and now you’re missing stuff. You’re not driving as well or whatever. Or you’re in a. And you’re not thinking clearly. So that’s a space [00:03:00] where an undisciplined use of time like pulls you down.

Being Better

But then there’s an undisciplined use of time where you’re already doing well, but you could do better.

And I think that comes down to the sort of space where you maybe on Sunday look at your week and you plan out your week, and then maybe you batch things like for example, Today, we’re recording on a Monday, which is really unusual for me. Normally, I only do podcast things Tuesday afternoons and Thursday afternoons, and that way my brain knows this is what we’re doing, and when I schedule other things, I schedule them in other places.

The undisciplined use of time, am I doing responsively, not responsibly, but responsively with a V, what it is I’m setting out to do, or am I doing reactionary what they, whoever it is they out there are asking me to do.

So I try not to get into my email until [00:04:00] midday. I try to work on my big projects in the morning. My brain knows this is how my schedule is blocked out. This is where I am going to put my energy, and then I don’t waste a bunch of time to trying to figure out the, the decision making.

That

Kelly: makes so much sense what you’re saying, so when should, before we get into the money, When should we take a break then?

Miriam: I’ve heard a lot of research say a variety of things. Some people will say 90 minutes, some people will say 50 minutes. I think there are, these, you know, various programs that say X many minutes on and X many minutes off, and.

What Worked Before?

This is my opinion, but I would say work with what worked well with your brain.

My brain wants to be done at 50 minutes. So why don’t I let it, I’m gonna waste the next little bit anyway, so I will often set an alarm for 50 minutes [00:05:00] and then I’ll take 10 minutes and I’ll do something.

I live on a little farm and so I will go out and check on something. I’ll go look for eggs or I’ll put fly masks on animals, or I’ll just take a quick walk around the yard and then get some sunshine and then come right back in and do another 50 minutes.

That’s what works for me, but I think you have to know yourself.

Kelly: Mm-hmm. .

I haven’t done that before, like setting an alarm because I don’t wanna break the flow if I am caught up in something.

Miriam: Yeah.

Again, I think it comes down to knowing yourself. If you’re the kind of person who can get into flow and stay in flow and go two or three hours, my goodness, do it.

Mm-hmm. . Um, if you’re the kind of person whose brain gets fatigued and you need a 10 minute break, and then you come back with like more vigor and the ability to think creatively again than do that.

I, I do think that [00:06:00] we are in the habit of maybe taking direction from everyone outside of ourselves. But there also is a deep knowing inside yourself that sometimes says, I just need a break. Yeah. Gimme a break. And I will go back to working. You know?

Kelly: Yeah.

Very true. So let’s talk about, undisciplined use of money.

[00:06:23] Talking about Money

Miriam: As a therapist, I can tell you that the things that people fight about the most are money and sex. Mm-hmm. . And as a coach, I can tell you as a business coach, I can tell you that if you get yourself into a space where you don’t have enough money to cover your expenses, The stress is through the roof.

Like it’s just visceral because it’s not just you that you’re in charge of. Now, if you’re a company that has team members, employees, now you’re looking at other people’s lives and the, the stress is astronomical. And sadly, it’s not [00:07:00] uncommon when business owners get into this space where they can’t cover their expenses, they, they get suicidal and some of them actually even take their life.

And I’m here to say nothing is worth that. All these problems can be worked out no matter how many zeros are after that number.

But I’m gonna say, you know, dialing this way back to a much smaller space. I encourage people to get into the habit of really understanding their finances and understanding what they’re doing with their money.

There are so many people who are unaware and they just sort of spend, they, you know, if they feel like it, they sort of have a general idea, and if there’s money in the bank, it’s like everything’s good.

Like I said, I’m on a farm, so I have animals. So I have an animal emergency fund, I have a vehicle fund, I have a health fund. And when the money goes in initially, it’s automatically pulled out on such and such a. [00:08:00] I don’t have to think about it.

Money Decisions

But then when, one of my animals needed a, it was an emergency surgery, it was $1,200. I didn’t bat an eye. I just said, yeah, that’s fine. Do do what you need to do to save her life. Mm-hmm. , and it wasn’t stressful.

But when you don’t have that money in those accounts, it’s extremely stressful.

Years ago, I said the ideal scenario is that I never make a decision based on do I have enough money?

I make the decision based off of is this the right decision, whether it’s for the animal or the vehicle or the vacation or whatever. Is this the right decision for my life based on a whole bunch of other principles.

So then I ask the question, how do I set myself up for that?

And the way you set yourself up for it is similar to time. You can be reactionary with your money and just deal with things as they come. Or you can be proactive and responsive and set it up ahead of time. [00:09:00]

So that’s a lot of words, but the principle’s the same, whether it’s you’re an individual or whether you’re a business, it’s just at a different scale. And when you’re looking at businesses, the question really becomes, is my overhead exceeding my cash flow?

And if it is, you’re gonna be uber stressed out and your business isn’t gonna do well.

Right.

[00:09:22] Be Proactive

Miriam: Yes. I’m a, I’m a big fan of, it is easier to stay, not stressed than it is to talk yourself off the ledge. Mm-hmm. , you know, whatever’s causing the ledge. This is intuitive with time and not as intuitive with money. But people are amazingly willing to be in the dark.

I know another entrepreneur who lost, I, don’t remember if this was in a quarter or in a month, but it was like $17,000 one quarter or month Then later $13,000 [00:10:00] one quarter or month, mostly because he didn’t have enough time to check his emails and figure out who was supposed to be doing what.

It was entirely avoidable. All he had to do was basically hire someone else to stay on top of that, and he had the resources to do it. He just didn’t get around to the organizational space to do it. He was running so fast fulfilling the business that he wasn’t working on the business so fast fulfilling the business that he wasn’t working on the business.

And I, I guess what I would say for individuals or business owners and I, I would say most are pretty good at having a general idea, but they are not good at having maybe like a quarter by quarter idea of what is happening with our revenue, what is happening with our profit? What is happening with our products?

Which product is making us the most money? Which products do we need to triage, and which ones do we need to basically accelerate going with that 80/ 20 rule? Hmm. That’s on the business side.

The Personal Side of Money

[00:11:00] On the personal side. It’s crazy how many people have high, high credit card debt.

And what’s fascinating about it is it creates so much anxiety that they won’t open the statements, whether it comes electronically or in paper, and they avoid it, and then they of course, make the problem worse, which gives them worse anxiety, and it’s a very, very negative feedback loop.

So open your statements, create a plan. Take action. Don’t put your head in the sand.

Kelly:  Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Also with, when you’re mentioning like re in the in business, really look at your products, let’s throw in your services.

I would add and see which ones are costing money. Do you need to promote it more or do you need to start letting it go and, you know, not just let [00:12:00] it peter out, but actually. You know, have it come to a conclusion or things like that. Absolutely. Yeah.

Miriam: Being active in the decision making process rather than being passive and letting just the currents of life float you down the river.

It’s an interesting space because when people get too overwhelmed, they stop taking the vital signs of their life or their business, and that’s where these problems, you know, creep up.

[00:12:28] Don’t Become Your Own Bottleneck

Kelly: So one thing I just thought of, would this be considered another resource that we may not be making great use of? And that would be, team members, you know, whether it’s someone we’ve hired full-time or a virtual assistant, where again, we may not be making best use of them. We’re not giving them enough to do or we’re not providing proper guidance.

Miriam: A lot of times, and it’s never anyone’s intention, those assistants or team members aren’t given, you [00:13:00] know, those maybe tasks. In part because the c e o or the owner doesn’t have enough clarity around them. Like you have to have a system that you can communicate to someone.

I remember hearing moms say this when they were in therapy, and I’ve heard CEOs and owners say the same thing. Oh, it’s so much easier just to do it myself. I don’t have time to teach someone how to do this.

And it is easier in the short term, you know it’s gonna be done right. And you know, there’s truth to that statement, but in the long term, you absolutely cannot grow.

You become your own bottleneck and you burn yourself out.

But teaching someone else to do it is a bit of a process, and you have to be willing to put up with the mess a little bit and also have some iterations around all of that because everybody’s learning.

Kelly: Yeah, do you have [00:14:00] any other suggestions for us or any other tips? What you shared was really great.

[00:14:07] Social Contagion

I do  know that there is kind of a social contagion If you hang around people who are chronically late, you will be chronically late, and if you hang around people who are punctual, you’ll become at least more punctual. If you hang around people who spend money without any sort of sense of, is this in my budget or I’m saving for something, you’ll become a spender Who you hang around with really influences what you do. Because we’re social creatures.

We have this thing in our, in our brain, actually on the back of our retina, we have these mirror neurons and, and also within our brain that cause us to mirror what we see in other people.

So if I smile, you smile, and if I get angry and hostile, you have to work really hard to not get reactive. [00:15:00] and if I’m spending money like crazy, you’re gonna be tempted to buy, you know, something that you might not have done on your own. Mm-hmm . So I guess I would say to people,

pay attention to who you’re hanging around with. Pay attention to what it is you want and start looking for people who are also doing that.

Your Environment

And you know, sometimes that means reading books by people who are doing that, following people on social media who like espouse these ideas.

They don’t have to necessarily be in your physical presence, but you have to put some inputs in that encourage you to make the behavior change and then you reduce, like I have a friend who spends a lot of money on things I would never spend money on, and when I hang out with her, I always end up spending more.

I don’t have to get rid of the friend, I just have to stop going places with her. Mm. And I have another friend who’s incredibly healthy in what she [00:16:00] does. I go to lunch with her because she orders healthy stuff and she reinforces what I’m trying to do in my life.

Kelly: Yeah, that makes sense.

Miriam: Surround yourself with people who are better at what you want to become and you’ll become it.

Kelly: That makes sense. Wonderful. Something to strive for.

[00:16:20] The Leave Better Podcast

Kelly: Awesome. So let’s talk a bit about your podcast, the Leave Better Podcast. What made you decide, decide to start a

Miriam: podcast?

Oh my gosh. Well, I mean, I was, I mean, to be honest, I was a little bit jaded with the kind of conversations I was having. I live in kind of a remote area and I just made the decision.

I wanted to have engaging conversations with people doing extraordinary things, and I thought, well, I’m really interested in self-development. I’d like to magnify my voice and get, you know, away from the [00:17:00] one-to-one and get more into the one to many. And I. I’m gonna win either way because even if nobody listens to it, I’m gonna have engaging conversations with people doing extraordinary things.

So that was my initial, you know, space and I thought, well, any, anything else that it, it happens beyond that is just icing on the cake.

Kelly: From a practical perspective though, what has been the most, like the biggest practical benefit you think you’ve gotten from podcasting so far?

Miriam: I would say probably three. The first benefit is that I had to learn a whole bunch of new technology. I like to learn, but also it’s very difficult to make yourself learn something without a practical application. So I. It’s not gonna stick if you don’t have a reason, at least for me. So I had all sorts of software and actual equipment and best practices [00:18:00] and platforms and this, that, and the other. So I just learned a lot of things and I loved it.

Hiring Help

The second thing, what I would say is I had recently hired an administrative assistant, or I guess I would, I call her my executive a. and I was in the process of that struggle we talked about earlier where it’s easier to do the vacuuming than to teach your kid how to do it.

And it forced me to systematize so many things that I was doing, and the podcast allowed me to do that easier because we were learning together. I hired her right at the time. I started the, well, maybe two months before I started the podcast, or maybe a. and so we were using, are using still a product called Asana as a project management tool.

And I said to her, okay, we’re gonna figure out how to do this, but every time you figure it out, I want you to document it as though you are teaching the next person. Mm-hmm. and I, I just love her to death. And I said, I don’t ever want you to leave my little company, but if you do, [00:19:00] we’re gonna have this documented so the next person is very easy to train. So I loved that benefit. It’s been huge. It’s, and I, I can’t say enough about that. Mm-hmm. .

And then I would say the third thing that I’ve gained from having my own podcast is I have a list of things that I’ve learned from each person that I’ve interviewed. It’s been great because I’m choosing extraordinary people.

It’s been super fun and I have learned so many things. I’ve talked to people from all over the world, and it’s been a, a big win. .

Engaging with People

I love being able to engage with people at a heart level, at a self-development level, and have somebody else come away better.

My whole premise is I want you to come in contact with me and leave better, but then as you’re better, I want you to leave them better your family, your business, and ultimately your world.

There are so many people doing good, but [00:20:00] there are also so many people who are somehow constrained there’s just so much negativity.

And it’s like, no, you can make a difference. Yeah.

Listen to somebody who inspires you and then go inspire someone else. Totally. I don’t know. Yes. I’m, I’m just a big fan of, you’ve only got one life, so do something with it.

Kelly: All of that is so beautiful. I just love everything you said there.

[00:20:26] Finding Miriam

Kelly: So how can listeners find you to learn more about you and your services?

Miriam: I love working with entrepreneurs and high performers, so if you are someone who is passionate about growing, I’m passionate about helping you grow.

I say reach out to me and we’ll have a conversation, and then we decide how to work in a way that fits what it is you’re, you need.

Kelly: Thank you so much, Miriam. This has been fabulous. I really appreciate your being here today.

 Photo credits: Photo by Firmbee.com on Unsplash

 

End Credits

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts, or wherever podcasts are found.

Full audio episode found here.

Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

All Leave Better podcast episodes can be found here.

Music by Tom Sherlock.

If you are curious to know more, please contact me!

As someone who has been a therapist for over a decade and has been coaching people for over three decades, I am uniquely qualified to address your concerns.