Finding Brilliant Balance in 2021

Hey there, welcome. I'm your host, Dr. Zoe, and today we are talking about brilliant balance with my guest, Cheryl Ann Skolnicki. But first up, my win and my fail, like I share all the time. My fail, I put the wrong gas in my car. Not like wrong premium versus low grade, but I put ethanol in my car that takes premium. Ooh, that was a big mistake. Luckily, I caught it early enough, but I went to a new gas station. I usually go to Sam's. I don't even think they have ethanol, so it wasn't even on my radar. Radar, and I started— I put it in my tank and started pumping before I looked at the actual screen and then saw that it was ethanol, not regular gas. The good thing is that my tank was low enough so I could just put regular gas and kind of dilute it, and I didn't have any major issues, but it was definitely a not paying attention fail. And I'm amazed that I have been able to come up with a fail basically every week since I started this podcast, which has been a couple of years now. Not a bad thing necessarily. I've also been able to come up with a win, so I've got to recognize that. But I think the moral of the story is that there will never be a shortage of fails, even though we're continuing to grow. And I know a lot of people don't really love the concept of fail. I think now as a society, we're so fast to get straight to the let me learn the lesson, let me figure out the good, let me twist this around and make this a good thing. And that's good, and that's It's necessary, but so is the whole processing of the failure part. Because when you sit with a failure, you can look at it. Yeah, you can learn from it, but you don't just learn the lesson. Sometimes the process of grieving the things that are lost in the failure that also produce growth. So I encourage you to acknowledge your failures, and you better be acknowledging those wins too. Reality is that we have to be real with ourselves, and we have to call a spade a spade. We have to look at our deficits, and when we do, we grow, and when we don't, We are at jeopardy, I think, even as a society, is creating false senses of strength, false personas, because sometimes you don't deserve a trophy. Sometimes you messed up, and sometimes, you know, it was just a little mistake, but it's okay to acknowledge them all. So my win, my win, my win is that I got my first review of the book, A Year of Self-Care, that book I wrote during the pandemic. It is on Amazon now. I wanted to read it to you all. It is from Leslie C. Thank you, Leslie C. And she says, great resource for busy women. I love this book. Practical self-care tips that are perfect for a super busy mom like myself. This was an amazing read to start my 2021 on the right foot. I can't wait to read more from this author. Thank you. And if you're wondering, if you're listening for the first time, that's A Year of Self-Care. That's my self-care book that is coming out officially February 2nd. It's available now for preorder on all the places. Amazon, Target, Barnes& Noble, other places too. I don't know all of them. Just look it up. And now on to the topic, Finding Brilliant Balance with Cheryl Ann Skolnicki. Hi there, I'm Dr. Zoe. I'm glad you're here. This is the place for developing your strength as a woman and helping you navigate difficult relationships in your life, including that sometimes difficult relationship with yourself. Being a strong woman is not about what other people can see, and it's not about how loud you are about it. It's a quiet knowing. This isn't therapy, but you may feel like you've been to therapy after one of my episodes. Here, we also explore the intersection of psychology and faith, all with the purpose of creating a new kind of strong. Welcome to Redefining Your Superwoman. Welcome, Sheralynn. I'm so happy that you were able to join us today. I'm excited to talk about the new era, right, of working life Mom, world, just the whole balancing all when half of us are home and we're not really sure what's going to happen from here.

Absolutely. I'm so happy to be here.

Thank you. So before we get started, can you please share your Superwoman win and your Superwoman fail with my audience?

Absolutely. So I think a Superwoman win for me would be my podcast. Podcasting I have been doing now for about 3 years. It's called the Brilliant Balance Podcast. I just have to say it has like exceeded my expectations in every way. It has been such a natural format. I love it. I love getting to have these amazing conversations with, you know, interesting, smart people. And, and to be 3 years in and just watching it continue to build an audience has been really gratifying. So that's a big win.

That's a huge win. Do you have regular guests on your show?

You do, yes. So I started it as just a monologue, right? Single host format and did that for, I think, the entire first year. And then in year 2, we started peppering in some guests. And then by year 3, we settled in about once a month. So I still do most of the episodes solo and then bring in guests and sometimes a little more often, but about once a month.

Awesome. I'm looking forward to listening.

Thank you.

So what's the main topic? What's the main content that you share?

So I would say Brilliant Balance is really about life at the intersection of your home life, your work life, and your life as a human, right? Like your personal life, the way you take care of yourself. So we talk about relationships, we talk about business, we talk about mindset, we talk about wellbeing. Certainly work-life balance comes up a lot.

Mm-hmm.

But my favorite episodes are really ones that provide a reframe, like some idea that the way you've been thinking about it has not been serving you well or makes you feel stuck or constrained. And if we can just reframe a thought pattern and, and get maneuverability there, those are my favorite. They're my favorite to listen to, right, as a podcast listener, where I walk away going, oh, that's how I need to think about that. And, and certainly my favorite as a host as well.

That's great. Brilliant balance. I love that. So can you share your fail, please?

Yes. So this is, I think, my My relationship with the word failure has evolved so much that it's actually hard for me to call anything a failure at this point, and that might sound so silly. But it's not like trying to put window dressing on this. It's just that I truly have come to look at things that I previously may have called a failure as a pivot, a growth, you know, opportunity, a learning. You know, it led to the next thing. So the one I think about was my first business. When I spent the first 15 years of my life, of my professional life, in a corporate role, and then I left to start my first business. And I would call it a failure. I mean, by many accounts, you could say it was a successful business. It had the opportunity to continue operating. It really never turned out the way I meant for it to. It got really off track because I started following other people's ideas about what the business should look like or how to scale or expand. Or fund it, and I just fell out of love with it. I mean, at the end of the day, that's that's my postmortem on it: is I was no longer in love with or excited about that business. So I shut it down and started a new business that really is kind of related but pretty different from the first venture. And so I think if you looked at that on paper, like you're like, "Well, you started a business that's not here anymore. It failed," and you could certainly call it that. But my my lens on it these days is like it's hard for me to even.

I'm so glad that you brought that up because I'm working with a number of women right now who are in that place of jumping from corporate to entrepreneurship, and they're so fearful of failure. And I'm— I know that just what you just shared can be a little bit of a beacon of light that you can start something and maybe it doesn't turn out quite like you imagined, but it also isn't the end, right? Right. It can be the beginning of something else. And so here you are, having done that, And now you are still an entrepreneur.

Yes.

Even though that particular business didn't continue. So thank you. I know that that's a gift for a lot of women.

So happy to share.

Yeah. Yeah. So let's dive into really, I'm going to just call it brilliant balance because I love that. We are in this place. I was just talking to you and I was talking on another podcast about, you know, we're going into 2021. And 2020 has been what we all know it's been. And, you know, I think back to 9/11 and how 9/11 changed our worlds significantly. And I look at COVID, you know, as a similar thing that our world has changed significantly and will likely be different. And so now we are settling into this new normal, right? Yes. And figuring out how can we continue because a lot of things got put on hold. We pause this, we stop this, but life's got to go on. And so how can we have that balance in this new normal? That's what I want to start talking about today. So can you, can you tell us a little bit about your journey finding balance and then how you're changing that? How are you reframing that now in 2021?

Oh, well, this is a big opening question. So let's, let's get into it. I think, um, Let's talk first about maybe what is— how do I even define balance? And what is it that I am trying to help our community within Brilliant Balance like set as a vision and move their life toward, right? And I think the key thing I would want anyone listening to hear is that I don't view balance as static. I don't think about pie charts that get split into equal pieces.

Right.

Or, you know, scales that are perfectly balanced. Those visual metaphors are really constraining because they kind of imply that like there's a right answer and when you get there, then you can stay there.

And there's this formula.

Yes, yes. And, and that's not the life I want to live. Like, I don't want to set a formula and then kind of be frozen in place so that I don't break it. Um, the life I want is much more dynamic than that and All of the women that I've crossed paths with would say, yeah, like things change and I want to stay on my toes as things change, right? I want to really gracefully transition through those changes. I want to feel a sense of like centeredness and control. And so as I say those words, the visual metaphor I get is a ballerina. I get, you know, Misty Copeland dancing in the American Ballet.

Oh, what a beautiful metaphor.

For me, that's it. Like, that is literally the picture I see. And I picture the need to land the pose. You know, as you move through your day or I move through mine, there are key moments that really matter.

Mm-hmm.

Not every single second of a 24-hour day is one of them, right?

Right.

So as long as I have really landed the pose in those key moments, and I've learned to transition with some strength and some grace from pose to pose, That's my definition of balance. So that's what I'm holding as a vision for my community and what I would offer to your listeners today. Does that resonate with you?

Yeah, it does. So as I think about those poses, the key poses, how do you help women figure out which those are? Because I think that a lot of women put priority sometimes on things that, you know, shouldn't be. And then also we say we have priorities, right? And then we recognize that our life doesn't really— isn't really reflecting that.

Yeah.

So how would you help a woman find those poses? They would be different, right, for everyone.

They are.

Yeah.

Yes. So the things that— first of all, I think there's kind of at a macro level, we have big priorities. You know, I have 3 children, I have a husband, I have 2 parents who are both living and live close by. I have my business. Like, I have some big bucket priorities, but that isn't even enough to steer my day-to-day. Right? I think there's— the freedom comes in the granularity of saying, how am I going to construct a week? How am I going to construct this day such that, you know, the things that matter most in this day or in this week are addressed? Because the truth is there may be some days where one of my children doesn't get any like real quality one-on-one attention from me. My kids are 10, 13, and 16. Like, that is a likely outcome that in a given day, They may not get a lot. They might have dinner with our whole family, or I may, you know, have a conversation with them in the morning, but to sit down eye to eye and really have a deep, meaningful interaction, that may happen hopefully at least every other day, maybe every third day, but I think we need to be realistic about like what's the level of service we're providing, right, to all these constituents that we're serving. Same thing with my husband. My husband and I can, at this 20 years into a marriage, we can go for some time without that really super intense interaction, and then when we get It's great, right? It's great to have a long leisurely conversation. So just knowing—

It's kind of about— it's kind of also about putting— really having good temperature on your people, right?

Yes.

Yes. And knowing like a 20-year marriage could probably sustain a longer period of time than maybe a 2-year marriage.

Yes. Yes. And different people, right? Different humans.

Absolutely.

You could be married to someone who can't do that and someone else can. I talk to my mom multiple times every single day.

Mm-hmm.

Now, for most 45-year-old women, they may not do that. They might talk to their mom once a week. But I have had that relationship with her for my whole life. So I think that there really is such a beautiful uniqueness to the way each of us needs to structure what feels right. And you asked the question of, how do you know? Like, how do you help women decide? It's how does it land? Right? How does it land in your heart? How does it land in your gut? Like, do you feel a sense of peace with and alignment with where your time is going and where your energy is going? And when you feel that, women who say, I have good work-life balance, that's really what they're saying. I am at peace with where my time and energy are flowing. Women who say, I need better work-life balance, are saying, my choices, like where my time and energy are going, is not aligned. With where I really want it to go, and I don't necessarily feel a sense of control over how to, how to make the switch. So my work is often about helping reclaim a sense of control and get the courage to make those changes so that it lines up.

I love that. I love that. And when I hear you talk about control, I think about anxiety, obviously from a psychological point of view. And so, you know, women who are in that space of not feeling like they have good work-life life balance are walking life in a place of really just high anxiety, right? And when I think about anxiety and what anxiety does, it wants to control. And so that idea of control seems amazing, but often we're not controlling the right things. We start to control the easiest things because that's where our brain goes is, well, let me control something because then I'll feel better. But it actually creates this kind of avalanche because we're not controlling the right things. So I wonder, as I'm just, I'm just kind of thinking out loud, what would be that first step of figuring out what are the things that I need to control and what are the things that I can let go? Because letting go is almost just as much—

For sure.

Yeah, a process as figuring out what you need to take control of. Yeah.

And I, I like to think of this— I don't know how you do it— I like to think of this as Letting them fall away. So for example, if I'm intentionally putting time against— so let's start at the top. If I say sleep is of paramount importance to my mental, physical wellbeing, and candidly to the experience everyone around me has with me, right? If I am well rested, they're having a better experience. Mm-hmm. Then if I say 8 hours, and I do say this, is critical to me, I'm going to protect for that, which means I have a 16-hour day, right? It's like slicing off those 8 hours and saying they're not available for other things, really under almost any circumstances save emergencies. So then you're like, I have a 16-hour day. What gets my energy next? And for me, I coach our community and myself to start with what I call foundational balance practices. What are the things that make me feel like the best me? Yeah. Right? Is it time alone? That's one of mine. Is it exercise? Is it prayer? Is it time to read? Is it time with a friend? Is it time outside, a pet, playing music? Like, what are the things that you know individually make you the best you? And I hardwire those in because they're foundational, right? That's what sets that balance. It's what gives my feet a place to land. Then you start looking at external priorities. So what's my work? What are my family responsibilities, household responsibilities? What are the things that kind of I feel excited about doing or I'm obligated to do, right, in a good way? And those things have to have space. And then what happens is the non-essentials naturally fall away. So rather than trying so hard to say no to things, which is really hard for most women, Mm-hmm. if we're— it's more about positive intent and then letting these other extra pieces— there's nowhere for them to go if you're in integrity to the rest of those choices.

Right, that's a great way of looking at it because then you have to say no because the space isn't there, right? But it's not an active, I'm trying to say no to everything, it just happens.

Mm-hmm.

And so I love that because I think about it as, okay, calendar. So you've already slashed out those 8 hours, right? Because those 8 hours are for your sleep. So then the next chunk, and for me, I always suggest that you should get the first few hours of the day. Because those, especially for a busy woman, are the most available. Because as the day goes on, more things come on us, right? And by the end of the day, if we're trying to save that time for ourselves, it's like, yeah, it's just not gonna happen. And so you have to really come to terms with the fact that your time needs to be scheduled in your calendar and probably first in the day, right?

1,000%. And it's so basic. Right. The only people who will fight us on this are the true night owls who are saying, I barely can get out of bed before I'm obligated to be somewhere, so I can't protect. And I think that's fair. You know, if you're truly a night owl, you probably have energy at the end of the day.

Theoretically, you should. Yeah.

Right. But I personally start my day alone and with some of my foundational balance practices. So I get up early to do that. I've done it All the way through raising these 3 children. So it is absolutely possible, even with newborns, even with babies, even with toddlers. It's about bringing in the whole family to the importance of that, you know, period of time in the day. Mm-hmm. And then I also start my workday that way. So there's like an echo of it that when I get to my workday, I don't schedule meetings first thing. That first piece of my workday is for me. To do whatever I've declared most important. It might be creative work, it might be strategy work, it might be something that's organizational that I need to focus on, but there's no one competing for my attention with that first cup of coffee in that first piece of my workday. And so it's a kind of an echo of the wake-up time.

And so what do you schedule, about an hour?

I really try to do 2 at this stage of my business, but I have a team of 8 Now, so when I didn't, I didn't have 2 hours to, you know, sit with myself. Um, I think an hour is great, but I really try to do 2.

I like that. I do the same. I start— so I start my morning at 5 o'clock in the morning, which gives me like 3 hours to myself where I can film me exercise, write, you know, all the things, meditate, pray, all the stuff. And then— but I haven't been doing that And I need to incorporate that. I love that, starting my workday with the same space. Because what I know is that when I start my workday, if I for some reason have not had those 3 hours, I feel it. It is so very different. I'm not as present, I'm not as centered and grounded as I'm starting my work with my clients. And so having that couple of hours in the morning for myself makes the biggest difference. But I'm gonna start incorporating that. Thank you.

And I always, as a listener, I always find the the specificity helpful, like how you just told them it's, you know, it's 5 to 8 for you. For me, I get up about usually about 5:30. So 5:30 to 7, I'm pretty much alone. At 7, I'm waking up kids. So 7 to 8 is what I call the morning launch. It's, it's— Right. You know, managed chaos. There's people moving around. I'm trying to make sure they're all out the door. And by 8, we have to kind of hit our mark with the little 2 kids. But I shouldn't say little, the younger 2. To get them out the door. And then that's my green light to be able to start my workday. So typically between 8:15 and 8:30, I'm seated with coffee at a desk. And then that's where that window of time starts for me. So I do have this interstitial where, you know, it's a time, it's a zone. Right.

It's

personal time, mom time, work time, right? And I'm kind of flipping through those all early in the morning.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I have the same thing, except you're in Ohio, right?

Yes.

Yes, I'm in California, so we don't have any leaving for school. We're in the just log yourself on and we're good kind of place. Yes. Because I've got— well, how many do I have at home now? 3 at home. My older one, oldest ones are gone. But yeah, so we're— I'm in that space too. And I do have that time like between 8 and 9 where I'm doing that before I settle into my work.

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. But that's— And it is different.

This year has been— and you started the interview with this. I mean, this year has shifted a lot about how do we think about, you know, if your commute— I'm doing this interview from my home office. If your commute is to a different room of your home, you are in a different place than maybe we were in February, where a commute may have looked like needing to get in the car and get to an office. When kids are being educated at home versus when they were educated in school, it changes those dynamics. So back to the earlier metaphor about ballet,

I

mean, we have to be on our toes. This is not going to be static, and this was a really big reminder of that. But from month to month and year to year, we get smaller reminders of that all the time.

We do. I want to just give an example. I shared this on another podcast about how That really the necessity for being flexible and the way that we get our me time and the way that we are filling ourselves up, because pre-pandemic, I could work out by myself. I could just go for a run and the kids were, I guess, either at school— I do homeschool one of my daughters— but, and then the gym, right? I could take the kids, drop them off at the kids center, they were having fun, and I could do my workout by myself. And I really valued that. Solidarity, that time when I could just have to myself and focus and go into my thoughts and be creative. And then when I had to start working out and I want to go for a run and kids are like, I want to come, I remember feeling really resentful. Like, why do I have to take them and I can't even— I'm trying to work out in the house and they're like all over me. I can't think. And so I had to really process that and really grieve it, grieve that loss. Because I mean, whenever there's a loss, you have to grieve it. And if you think of the stages of grief, there's denial, like, oh, this is gonna be over. This is not happening.

Right. Yeah.

That was funny. Yeah, that was really funny. Still going on. And then you've got to process the anger and you've got to work to a place of acceptance. And so for me, it took a couple of times where I finally said, okay, wait, you are pouting right now because you have to work out with your children. You need to get over yourself. But also recognizing that this can be different and it can still be good.

Different again.

Right. I can still feed myself in a different kind of way when I'm working out with my kids But I also know, and I got to a place where I actually enjoy it and I look forward to it now, but I also know that I still need to take that extra little bit of time that I'm not getting when I'm working out for myself.

Yes, yes, get it back in some other way because

I

mentioned earlier one of my foundational balance practices is time alone. So it can come from working out, but if I'm walking with a friend or if I'm taking a class, then that's not time alone. So then it has— that has to come in some other way. Time to think.

Yeah, yeah, that's so important. So what other practices in addition to that, you know, setting time in the morning, right, and making sure that, that you're pouring into yourself first— what are some other practices that a woman who maybe is in this place of having kids at home, trying to work, trying to take care of herself, run a family, and All in the same building. What other practices could she put in to really just maintain some sanity?

Yes, well, I think if you— we think about this within Brilliant Balance as almost like a 3-step progression. So where I started when we talked about foundational balance practices is at the foundation. It's, it's where we go first to assess really how well are you taking care of yourself. Do you feel energized? Are you able to sustain that energy throughout the day so that— so why? So that you have energy for the things you want to get done, right? Typically where work-life balance gets really strained is around productivity. I don't feel like I can get all the things done. Like a refrain for our community would be, I have too much to do and not enough time to do it. And they would all violently head nod to that.

I had thought to that. Yeah.

And I think this goes back to what we were talking about earlier around choices. So that, that second kind of piece of the puzzle is how do you really enhance your productivity, but not in a way that you're like some kind of frenetic Energizer Bunny, you know, trying to get things done from sunup till sundown. It's, it's more of an optimization exercise. So, you know, how do you— what does a great week Feel like where does your time go? You and I were dancing with this when we were saying like, "I like to start my day alone. I'd love to have some thinking time at the beginning of my workday." Like start to put those big blocks in the sleep. You know what is a really a week lived well look like and feel like? And and there's a reason I use the week here because a lot of women will try to optimize a day, and I just think it's too narrow. Like we just don't ever have a perfect day. That's why I shared that example about there might be days when my 13-year-old. and I do not have a meaningful conversation. It's more transactional. But in a week, I better make sure that's happening, right? So thinking about how do you allocate your time so that all of your important priorities are being addressed over the course of a week, that's like the next level. And it's, it has to do with having an intentional plan, making sure that you are in integrity to that plan. You know that you don't make a beautiful plan and then boot it at the first sign of somebody else's needs coming into your day. You know, or you get distracted, or you feel not motivated. Like the plan has to get executed with a level of rigor if you really want to be kind of feeling a good sense of balance. And there's a lot of there's a lot of very practical work to be done there, right? This is not theoretical. It's very practical work around are there things you're not going to do anymore? Are there things you're going to delegate or outsource? So they still have to get done, but someone else can do them. Are there things you can do more efficiently that can be re-engineered in a way that takes less time? And really, I haven't found another one. It's those 3 things, right? You're either not going to do it at all, someone else is going to do it, or it's going to get done more efficiently. And so that whole middle realm is, again, Maybe a little more tactical, but, but massive gains around feeling better when, when that piece gets optimized.

I love that piece. And I can see that as a tangible exercise that a woman can sit down and do and really just knock out those 3 things. Let's say them again. What are we not going to do anymore?

Mm-hmm. What are we gonna have someone else do? Delegate or outsource? And then what can we do more efficiently?

Right. And I know so many women have the issue of delegation. I have been there. But we have to recognize that there are things that we are uniquely gifted to do that nobody else can do. And really, all the other things, we need to let go. We need to let other people do them. I've learned that in my business. It's huge when you're able to make that step and finally let somebody else do it. But you have to be willing to let them do it their way, their way too. That's the hard part.

2 things that get in the way of this. One is money. So if we're talking about outsourcing, where I'm going to pay someone to do the job, money gets in the way. And then the second thing that gets in the way is just our need for control or sense of responsibility. So the guilt, right, that can rise up if we think, it really is my job. I can't ask someone else to do this in my household. If I— my kids have so much homework. If I ask them to do the dishes, it's just not fair. Those are real conversations I have had with real women, and you probably have too.

Sure.

You know, and

I've had that with women who have 30-year-old children still living in their home.

Yes. And I mean, I think my view on it is just very practical. You know, we all live here. This is not my home, it's our home. There are 5 of us who live here. So if we work together to run this household doing tasks that we are capable of doing, It gets done faster, right? It's like many hands make light work, just brought to life in a household. So plus we're training those children to then run households of their own, right? Where if they don't learn, they go off into the world ill-equipped to run a household. So it's such a massive apprenticeship period and learning time that doesn't have to be high friction and people yelling at each other. It's like, If the expectation is set early, there really is a pathway there for getting a lot of help. And I think the money piece matters here because, you know, one, we have an economy that takes all kinds of jobs. So if you are paying someone to do work, they're earning a living while you are earning a living doing the work you're best suited to do. And I think that's a flip for a lot of women. Like, we somehow feel like we're cheating. Like, if we could do it ourselves, we should, because then it would be free. But it's not free, right? It has this massive opportunity cost. Yeah.

Yeah, I have learned that lesson in so many ways because, you know, I've had that especially early in my business about not wanting to hire an assistant because how much money it's gonna cost. But what I realized, even though people told me, is that when I hired that assistant and she was doing that work, I made more money. Right? That's great. I was able to make more money and be more productive because I had somebody else doing those other things. And same thing, I learned that once years and years ago when I used to have these Thanksgivings and I would have everybody over and it was this huge production, right? And I would take time off to clean the house and get everything prepared. And finally I realized, I decided, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to pay somebody else. Right, to clean the house and do all those things. When I did that, it was mind-blowing because I took what was essentially an hour's worth of my work and paid somebody, you know, gave that money to somebody else, when before I would take an entire day off. Right. So I would lose 8, 9 hours worth of work because when we're entrepreneurs, we don't get paid if we don't work, right? And then I realized, wow, I was paying myself 8 times

what

I pay her to clean my house.

I think these little math games are so important. Your ability to run that calculation matters. And we just don't place a value on our time. Way too often we think, again, if I can do it myself, I should, therefore I'm saving. But we're not saving money. That's a huge piece. I think those 2 avenues, guilt and the financials, are maybe what gets in the way of that particular strategy for being more productive through delegation and outsourcing.

Good. Thank you.

I think one thing I would offer up is I mentioned there's a 3-step ladder and we're going to leave people hanging if we— we'll just hit that 3rd really briefly. So if that first one is about your energy and wellbeing and getting your own self fully optimized. And the middle piece is about a productive week. You know, how do you really manage a week and get the tasks done? The third part of it is why does it all matter, right? What is the work steering toward? Why do you want the energy? And so we call that possibilities, right? What are you steering toward in terms of, you know, your mission, your purpose, the legacy you want to leave, the The impact of the relationships that you have, the work you want to do in the world. So I think we could be very busy and very healthy, right? Get a whole bunch done and be really healthy, but not necessarily be steering ourselves in a direction that we feel great about. So I think fully optimized, this equation looks like, you know, we know where we're going. We're using our time well to get us there. We're not just on a hamster wheel. And we feel great while we're doing it. Like, that's kind of— that's really what we're trying to optimize for in that— in this era of work-life balance with some new constraints. You know, like you brought up at the beginning, there are some new pressures on this ecosystem, but the ecosystem remains the same.

That makes a lot of sense. So for me, that would just be called writing down your why, right? What is your why? And I ask my women to write down their why, to post Their why so that they are motivated. Because without a why, then we do, we lose not just vision, we lose motivation to continue something. So I love that last aspect. Thank you for adding that.

Yes.

So tell me, how can my listeners get ahold of you? Do you have anything going on right now that they could take advantage of?

Well, the easiest place to find us is really on our website, so brilliant-balance.com. We always put right at the top whatever's hot, like whatever's currently happening. There's a takeover all the time. So depending on when this airs, there'll be whatever's current that way they can find. And then the other thing is the podcast. So I mentioned that at the beginning, and I think if you're already listening to a podcast, it's super easy to, you know, go check out another one and add it to your queue. So that's just called Brilliant Balance and super easy to find us there too.

Wonderful. Thank you so much for taking your time to be with us today.

Thank you for having me. It was fun.

Thank you for listening to the Dr. Zoe Show, Redefining Your Superwoman. New shows go up every Tuesday. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode and text the word strong to 38470 to get my weekly encouragement. I look forward to connecting with you amazing women Women on social media throughout the week. Have a super week!