Client Chat with Jade

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey everyone. Um, oh, the technical issues. But hey, we are here. Dr. Jade Mitchell-Blackwood is here in the place on a Saturday afternoon. Hi Jennifer, looking lovely as ever.

Thank you.

All right, so let's get get started with our client chat. And, uh, okay, so yeah, let's get started. I know we've had to reschedule a couple times because you are super busy.

I apologize, my schedule is—

oh, yeah, no, no, no worries. No need to apologize. But tell us, what do you do that makes you so busy all the time? I know you're traveling here and there, but I think that's a good place start so people understand who you are and what you do.

So I'm an assistant professor in environmental and biosystems engineering. I am pre-tenure, which means that I'm a bit busier than someone who's been established for a while. So I'm starting a research program. I'm supervising and hiring graduate students support that work. I'm teaching, I'm traveling, presenting our research at conferences, and I have a family. So in brief, I'm writing, I'm publishing. It's quite hectic.

And how old are the kids?

So the husband's younger than me, but he may not appreciate me broadcasting his age. We have a 17-year-old. Teenagers have their own challenges. And we have a toddler, which I probably don't have to explain the challenges there.

So needless to say, you are extremely busy. And you said you're researching, right? That's part of your tasks and everything else that you're doing. So Tell everyone why you decided to start coaching. So where were you, I guess, before we entered into the coaching relationship? And may I add a caveat? Jade is one of my oldest and dearest best friends, so it's been an interesting dynamic. You can't always coach your friends, but since I know Jade and I know that I could help her and she has much potential. She just needed a little bit of guidance. So tell us where you were before you decided you're like, all right, I need a third person to come in here and help me.

Well, more than 3 people, which is one thing that you've helped me with. But, um, what Jennifer likes to call the place where I was is overwhelmed. Um, because it was like I was on a constant treadmill and needing to put off some of the most important things like exercise and meal planning. Um, and even just sitting down to like look at my schedule and reevaluate it from time to time on a regular basis so that I'm not so busy and that I'm not in overwhelm.

Ah, overwhelm. Oh, we have a person that says hello. Hey, Colette.

Hi, Colette.

Let's see. Okay, so we can put— anybody has any live questions, you can just type them and they will show up here. Okay, so I can't ask you how you discovered me because we've known each other since we were, what, 15 or 16?

Yes, but I was really excited to hear about your new business. Um, and actually, you know, we talked about coaching as being helpful for me, and I tried another coach, so I, I still think I had to discover you as being the best coach for me.

That's right, I forgot about that. So I guess, um, to summarize, what were some of your biggest challenges before you started coaching? Oh boy.

Delegating tasks, which is something I do, you know, at work, but I realized I wasn't doing it at home at all. And that meant that I was trying to manage too many things all at once, which didn't allow enough time to prepare for some of the other things that I wanted to do. And those things were like having a healthy diet, exercising, finding time for relaxation and self-care. I think that summarizes it.

Yeah. And then also, you know, the issues you were dealing with at work as far as organization and time management. And there was—

oh, right, yeah. So work was definitely interfering with like the rest of my life. Yeah, it was my life and that, that was it.

Yeah, you spend most of your time at work. And so the problem that I find, or the common thread I find with most of my clients who are dealing with overwhelm, is that because they are so overwhelmed in some area of their life, usually it's outside of the home, then that just leaves them at the bottom. So there's no time to meal prep. Like, what is that? Go to the gym? Like, what? Who has time to go to the gym? I can barely get 5 hours of sleep. Exactly.

I definitely was not sleeping.

Yeah. And so before we even got started, because you had already been on your own health journey as far as finding out what foods are good for you, what foods work best for you. So you already had a really good knowledge base when it came to what you should be eating for you, but it was finding the time to actually like be able to meal prep and be able to actually think through, gee, what am I eating? And oh yeah, I have 3 other people in the house who need to eat too.

Right.

Yeah. And so what was our solution?

So one of the biggest changes was getting a housekeeper. That was amazing. Yay. But you know, after I got the housekeeper, there were things that I realized that I could do on my own, just using some of the helpful tips that you gave me as far as meal prep containers and like buying certain things prepared. Um, but getting help, definitely. So additional people. We also hired a babysitter like on a regular basis, um, so that we had some time on Sunday afternoon to plan for the rest of the week.

And how you were doing this on your own before, I don't know.

No, we have no idea either.

I don't know. And so the delegation also went over into your work life too, as well, right? Because you were trying to do— just like you were trying to do everything at home, you were also trying to do everything at work. Sure. And you didn't need to. So tell us a little bit about that.

Well, academia does not function like a corporation. And although many of us come with industrial experiences, it's like we completely forget that when we're like in a school setting. So like there are many tasks that I found that I was spending time on that I really didn't have to do, that I could delegate to an administrative assistant, a student, or, you know, a research associate that, you know, took time off my plate so that I could focus on the more important things in my job, which right now is publishing. And writing takes, you know, a consistent practice and large blocks of time with focus.

And so now you are a perfectionist at large blocks of time focus, right?

I would not call myself a perfectionist.

Perfectionist.

Yes, I've definitely made improvements. I think that I've submitted 5 or 6 publications since we started working together, which is pretty remarkable.

Mm-hmm. We have Erica here. I don't know, can you see her comment? She says, um, hey Erica, thanks for joining. My job evolves around my life and my goal is to change this. Glad to be a part of this. Thank you. So thank you for joining. Um, it is, we spend most of our time at work And if we can't manage our work, how can we possibly manage what goes on when we come home from work? And really all you want to do is crash, have a glass of wine and call it, call it done. Call it a day. Exactly. It was really simple things, right, Jaden? When we were looking at your work schedule, we just kind of prioritized and we just listed out everything you had to do, like everything you had to do.

And seeing that list was helpful because it made me realize that I can't possibly do all of those things in the amount of time that I'm spending on work. So some of those things have to come off my plate, or there are projects that I just have to say no to and that I'll have to get back to at a later time.

Yeah, you learned how to say no.

I've been saying no a lot.

Yeah, yeah, that's, that's huge because, you know, we want to be Superwoman, we want to be Wonder Woman, you We want to be able to say yes. We want to be liked by everyone, by our colleagues. So they ask us to do something, we're like, sure, no problem, I can handle that. And then you're like cursing under your breath because you're like, when the hell am I going to have time to get this done? So yeah, I think people are able to respect you when you can say, you know what, I would love to help you right now, but I can't do it.

Right.

Maybe there's another time that we can do it.

Exactly.

Yeah, I was amazed by all the work that you had to do and the time you were spending on little stuff like going through emails and, you know, preparing for— well, preparing for your lessons, of course. Oh, the grading, like spending a lot of time grading papers. We came up with a curriculum creative and fun way around that. It's interesting, I have a couple of academia women in the community, and I know that grading takes a lot of time.

It does, and it's always like the cost-benefit doesn't always work out. I mean, sometimes you can just review it again in class instead of spending 40 hours grading.

Can't imagine. Can't imagine. So I think we spent the bulk of our time together. We did a 3-month— we were 4 months, right? I think we did 4 months coaching.

Yes.

Um, we spent the bulk of our time working through your work schedule, getting organized, um, getting your calendar organized and figuring out time slots. What could you do?

That was huge.

Mm-hmm. What was he just tell us? Tell us again.

Before we do the—

but— uh-oh.

Can you hear me?

Yeah, we got a little blip in the connection. So tell us about your schedule and your calendar.

Well, I just didn't really have good control over it. I have lots of meetings with collaborators who are also in academia, so their schedules are fluctuating just as much as mine. Um, I was allowing too much time for meeting with students, which, um, ended up being wasted. I would put an hour block of time for a meeting where it might have only taken 15 or 20 minutes. And I found that that was a waste of time because I couldn't squeeze in, you know, anything meaningful in those 30 or 40 minute time slots that were left. Um, I wasn't being consistent with putting in, um, things that I wanted to do, like getting to a class at the gym and just holding that time and never changing it. Um, and I also, which I'm still working on, tend to, um, not buffer enough time around activities. Like considering that if I'm going to go to the gym, I have to drive there. I have to get changed. Um, I have to get back.

You have to find a parking space.

Parking. Exactly. So a lot of my days would just be like back-to-back activities with no breaks. So it really helped a lot to schedule out things, to hold time blocks, and to make sure that those buffers were there so I wasn't always rushed or running late.

Yep. Those time buffers are huge. Travel time. It's interesting, like where we try to squeeze everything in, everything is back to back to back to back. And it's like, no, you need a little break in between, right? You need some time to breathe. You need some time to refocus. So that is huge. And if you don't schedule those buffer times, those extra time periods, you're just going to find yourself running behind. As soon as you get up in the morning, your whole day is like shot because you're going to be running late. So yeah, getting the schedule under control. So once we figured out your schedule, we looked at everything you were doing, we prioritized Delegated, reorganized, figured out what was important, what wasn't important. And then all of a sudden it's like, oh, you had time to go to a 6:30 AM class in the morning, right?

Yes.

You had time, a block of time, 90 minutes of time to write and research, right? Like, ah, exactly. Amazing. So I guess what is the, I know, I guess the biggest tangible thing, change that you've noticed from coaching?

Biggest, that's hard. I think a lot of things have changed. Like my husband's happier because now we have a regular babysitter and a housekeeper and we know what we're going to eat all week. And, you know, we come home and it's not like a marathon. Until bedtime. But I've also been a lot more productive at work. I mentioned the, the publications that I've been able to submit just because I can, you know, keep those blocks of writing time. So maybe it's, um, like reduced stress, which, you know, feels great and, you know, helps me focus and accomplish everything that I'm doing in life.

And you know, reducing stress changes the number on the scale.

And it absolutely has. I think I lost like 8 lbs. the first 5 weeks that we were coaching. Yay! Yeah. And I am not, so I only know that because I had a doctor's appointment. I don't actually weigh myself at home. And that is just something that I don't do because of past experiences with Weight Watchers and feeling like I was tied to it.

Weight Watchers, man, it kills a lot of us women. That's excellent.

But I mean, my clothes feel better. I didn't wear last year, but I decided to keep because I wanted to get into them again. So I definitely noticed. Yeah.

And then you had the energy and the stamina to do, um, you did the 21-day challenge, right? Last, or was that the—

Yeah, that was kind of shocking. I surprised myself. Like I got into a rut with exercise and then And you know, the 21 Day Challenge inspired me to go at it again and it worked. I did fall off the last week or so, but my daughter got sick and I got sick and then I traveled. But now I know that, you know, these things are going to happen and just get back on it as soon as possible.

Exactly. Exactly. So you're doing another 21 Day Challenge in June, right?

Yep. June 1st, I'm going to start another 21-day challenge and my goal is to work out 5 times a week.

Excellent. And are you going to hold yourself accountable by posting your post-workout sweaty selfies in the—

Yes, that was really helpful. Maybe because I am Catholic and I have like that Catholic guilt, but I felt like if I didn't post it, then I didn't do it. You know, I tell people like at work, if you don't have it in writing, then it doesn't exist.

Right.

It's the same kind of thing.

Yeah. Yeah. The accountability— I love the accountability group. And for those of you who aren't familiar, I have a Facebook. It's a private free Facebook group. It's called the Stop Dieting Forever Accountability Group. And we have different challenges, different themes for the days and In May, we did a 21-day challenge. Basically, anybody could join, and if you had one healthy habit you wanted to master, you stated what that was and what you were planning to do for 21 days, and you had to post in the group every day what you were doing. So Jade suggested, or her plan was to get to the gym to work out 5 days a week. And so this is someone who basically never posted.

Oh yeah. People should know that I hate to work out too. It's not my favorite thing to do.

Mm-hmm. But you were doing stuff you like to do, right? You found a couple of classes that you enjoyed more than others.

Right. So I can keep working out if I'm having a good time. And there are certain classes that I love, like cycle and boxing. But that means that I have to hold those times on my schedule to make it to those classes.

With buffer time, with time to get dressed, travel.

Everything else has to work, you know, so that I can get to those classes.

Yeah, that's excellent. Excellent. Well, great. I am super excited for you. I'm super excited for the weight loss. You look radiant. You look beautiful.

Thank you.

You look very bright and like, I don't know whether it's like Saturday afternoon.

Sunlight. I don't know.

In the sunlight. Yeah, but you look really good. So Happy for that. And thank you so much for your time. But before you go, I just want to ask you one last question. If anyone were on the fence about coaching, like, okay, I don't really know what this coaching thing is, what would you say to them?

Do it. And I mean, I would say that from the perspective of someone who feels like they were already very knowledgeable about what they needed to do. And I just, you know, I was kind of skeptical about, I don't really need more information. I felt like I had that information, but I just wasn't able to use it because, you know, I wasn't making the space for that. And the coaching helped me make the space to really, you know, have clear ideas and make things happen that I wanted to make happen. Yes, I know, it's awesome.

And now you're going— semester's almost over, right? You're going into summer break.

Yep. So we're spring. Yep. Um, it's summer semester, so I have a lot more time and there are a lot less people around. And in a way, you know, that makes it easier to get the things done that I want to do. But, you know, it's going to be challenging again in the fall and in the spring. So I think this is a great opportunity to like focus on those healthy habits that I've created so that I don't run into trouble when it's busier.

Because you've got a plan, sister.

I have a plan.

You have a personalized plan that works for you, and that's what it is. Excellent. All right, well, if anybody has any questions, you can type them in. I didn't see any besides Erica, and thanks for joining, Erica. Thanks for joining, Wendy, and thanks for joining Colette. You know what, I think we're going to call this one a wrap. My husband is outside barbecuing and I can smell the food coming up through the window.

That sounds yummy.

Yeah, it sounds good. So we're going to go down and enjoy, but enjoy the rest of your holiday weekend. Any special plans?

Um, we're gonna go to a couple of parties at friends' houses. It's still a little cool in Michigan. Um, most of the population goes up north to like lake cabins. But my husband's from LA and he's not really excited about doing that yet. By August. Right. For now, we'll stay as far south as possible.

Well, enjoy the downtime and the family time. And thank you again for sharing your experience.

Thank you.

All right.

See you later. See you later.

Bye.