Transcription
Hi, my name is Mandy, and I am a career coach and writer. I talk about how to be more joyful and bring more creativity into your life. Now, in today's episode, we are going to talk about the topic of discernment, which is the ability to judge for yourself if you really want to do a thing and if you really want to give it time, attention, and energy.
Oftentimes, we have trouble figuring out when people approach us and when people ask us for favors or for our time. We have trouble figuring out if this is even something that we want to do. Normally, we just say yes. Why? Because we want to be nice, we don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, we want to be considerate, and we want to be seen as good.
In this episode, we're going to talk about three lessons. The first is how to protect your time. The second is how to protect your own agenda and not let other people's agendas steamroll your own. The third is how saying no can actually lead to your yes.
All right, so let's get started.
**Lesson One: How to Protect Your Time**
Your time is actually the most valuable asset that you have. If you are working a regular 9-to-5 job, those pockets of time before work, during lunch, after work, and at night are the most precious and valuable pieces of real estate that you have. It's during this time that you can actually create things, figure out what's important to you, devote yourself to your side hustle, grow your creativity business, or just relax and be on your own without having to do things for other people.
There are three categories that I want you to be especially mindful of. These things are not negative just on their own, but cumulatively, if you find yourself doing a lot of these things again and again, you might realize that you're not actually getting that much out of it. So, there's coffee chats, there's networking, and there's volunteering.
I think especially as women, we try to be so helpful and bend over backwards for everybody else. I used to be a person where if someone asked me for a networking call or just to shoot the breeze or pick my brain, I would almost always say yes because I felt like I never wanted to be a person that kicked the ladder underneath me. I always wanted to be helpful, especially if I saw someone where maybe I could see a little bit of myself in them.
But here's the thing: if you are trying to build something, if you are trying to create something, all of these pockets of time are so incredibly valuable. You cannot just give them away. I'm kind of talking to myself too because even today, I'll find myself thinking, "Oh, maybe I should just say yes to that thing," or "Maybe I should just agree to have a coffee chat with a stranger." But honestly, I'm in a mode where I'm like, "No, I want to be creating. I want to be building. I'm working on my business, and I don't necessarily have that kind of time to give away."
I think especially if you work a 9-to-5, you're already giving so much of yourself to your job. I kind of want to segue into this idea that you should not be giving any time outside of work to your job because you need to reserve that for yourself. We are not static people; we are always changing and always growing. There's always something that could be worked on for yourself. You could be working on a creativity project, your comic strip, or your novel, as I see in the comments. There are so many things that you could be doing.
I'll give you another example. When I worked at one of the last companies I was at, it was a startup. I have two young kids, so I would put the kids to bed. Between 8:30 and 9:30, I was constantly coming back online to reply to emails, look at someone's deck and give feedback, or send out one last client email because they were in India or China. But when I look back at that, I'm like, "Girl, what are you doing?" Because that hour, that 8:30 to 9:30 hour, was my time. I just gave that away like I had a limitless amount of time, but that was false.
At the same time, if you find yourself giving too much of your time to your employer, this leads to burnout. I'm going to draw a little visual for you: you are a perfectionist overachiever. This leads to giving too much to your company, which leads to burnout, and ultimately, wanting to find a new job.
At some point, you are on this cycle. When you are at the end of that chain and you're like, "I'm burned out. I don't want to do this anymore," guess what? You don't have any time to give to yourself. You don't have any time to invest in your future or to take a minute to breathe, take care of yourself, and nourish yourself. Why? Because you've given away all your energy.
So, number one, you need to look at your life like a scientist. Identify where you have leakage. If you want to be building something, creating something, or making more art, you need to be selfish. There is greatness inside of you waiting to be born, and if you do not invest in yourself and claw your own time back, you're never going to get there.
Even if you just want an hour to yourself to work out, go to the gym, do your CrossFit, yoga, or swimming, you have to claw it back. I talk to so many clients who say things like, "I just feel bad. I feel like I need to be on call. I feel like my butt needs to be in the seat. I feel like my company's been really good to me, and if I disappear, that's disloyal."
Don't feel bad! Number one, don't feel bad.
**Lesson Two: Learning to Protect Your Own Agenda**
I see in my comments that a lot of the people watching this channel are generally creatives. They are people who are trying to build something, create something, or make something, whether it's writing, dancing, or some form of art. Here's the thing: if you don't understand what you're trying to create, other people are going to come in and try to dictate that for you.
You have to know what you're about. You have to know, "Yeah, I'm trying to write a self-help book because I'm trying to empower other people to step into their power." Or, "I'm trying to write, direct, and produce this play about the minority experience because I want underrepresented voices to be seen and heard in public spaces." You have to know what your mission is and what you're trying to do.
In that, you have to be a leader. Leadership often means standing alone in the cold and having a vision before anybody else knows what the hell you're even doing. It is a lonely experience.
The reason I say you have to be a leader in your own art is that if you aren't, you will become, by default, a follower. Somebody else is going to come in and say, "Oh, you're really good at choreography. Can you come help me do my thing?" Or, if you really want to start your own business and you're so talented, but because you don't have the focus, strength, courage, money, or timing, you just aren't there yet. Then, somebody comes along and says, "Why don't you come work for me? Help me get rich, and you can just put your dreams on hold."
That's what happened to me before I went out on my own to be a coach. I worked for someone else for a couple of years. What I wouldn't give to have those years back in my prime, in my mid to late 30s, to have that energy and focus on my own. But I wasn't ready. I didn't have the vision yet. I was still paying off my student loans, etc.
The sooner you can lock in on what your agenda is, what you're trying to build, and what you're trying to create, the better. You may not know; I didn't have the vision for half the things I'm doing until I started doing them. So, I don't blame you if you're like, "It's a little bit hazy right now." That's okay.
But you need to be locked in on something, even if it's just, "I don't know what it is yet, but I know I want to work for myself," or "I want to express this sort of pain," or "I want to give language to this thing that isn't spoken about in the world." Even if the idea is not fully formed yet, you can still have conviction towards it.
You do not need to have a perfectly baked idea to know, "Oh, this is going to be delicious." It just doesn't exist yet, but you know it's going to be.
**The Final Lesson: Saying No Will Lead You to Your Yes**
There was a time before I started this company when I was saying no to a lot of things based solely on vibes. I was like, "That's not it," and I didn't have other things lined up. I didn't have a crystal-clear vision of anything; I just knew that was not it.
I knew not to get caught up in other people's random ideas or things that did not suit me. Even though I didn't have my life perfectly together, I knew well enough to say no to things that were not the vibe.
I'm going to give you two examples.
Example number one: At the time, I was a freelance career coach. I was hired by a company to come in for a certain number of hours a week and coach their students. I liked it because it was flexible, and I was getting a lot of practice coaching. I also liked the mission of it; I liked helping people and talking to different people from all walks of life.
When I first negotiated the contract, I was making $60 an hour. I was pretty happy with it. I know a lot of people are going to say, "What? You're crazy! I charge $200-$300 an hour." But for me, I thought, "These are students; they need help. $60 an hour is great."
After two years, I was consistently ranked highly and had great results. I had gone to them multiple times to discuss a pay increase, especially because I knew other people were coming in from big tech companies. I was trying to negotiate more, especially because I had subcontractors working under me that I wanted to pay more.
Then, they came to me and said they would love for me to continue, but they had to do it at $30—half the rate. At that moment, I was like, "You know what? I don't have anything else lined up, but I can tell you right now that's just going to be a no for me."
I took that as a sign that this had run its course. I also thought, "That's just not the life I'm trying to live." I wasn't trying to hustle my ass off helping these people with interview prep, resumes, and salary negotiation. I knew their business model and how much money they were making.
So, I said no. I said, "Unfortunately, I will not be continuing. My last day will be this. Here is the handoff to all of my students. Thank you, and goodbye."
Example number two: I went to Columbia Business School, and as part of Columbia's alumni network, they have a coaches network. I was part of this coaches network for about a year. At first, I was so excited because I loved Columbia and wanted to be part of this prestigious group.
But then I realized that I was being asked to volunteer my time and do free coaching. The idea was that you do this coaching, and over time, people would become your clients. I started to recognize that the clients I was getting were really just these die-hard finance-obsessed type people, which was not really my thing.
I was constantly being asked to host Q&As and panels, and I just thought, "Wait a minute, is this really what I want to be doing?" After a year, I politely told them, "I am not going to do this anymore. Thank you so much, but my tenure is going to come to an end."
Here's what I think: when you are trying to create something great, you have to think about your field. I was spending my energy on the Columbia thing and the boot camp thing, and I realized that sometimes when you say no and clear the board, you create space for something valuable.
You have to push out strategically, intelligently, with kindness and love, the things that don't make sense. If you have a fear like, "I can't do that," that's normal. You're going to have that fear. But if you really want to create something great, you have to get rid of that.
The only reason that I'm here now, able to talk freely, record a YouTube video in my house, be on TikTok, write journals, and write this book, is because two years ago, I said no. That was the single biggest, most important action I took. I made space for myself.
To recap the three lessons from today:
1. Protect your time; it is your most precious and valuable asset.
2. Protect your agenda; don't absorb other people's ideas of what you should be working on. Make your own.
3. Saying no and clearing the board thoughtfully can lead to your yes.
I hope this was helpful. Thank you so much for watching. It is not lost on me that you have so many options of random things you could be clicking on, and I'm so grateful that you are here. I'm going to keep showing up, and I love you so much. Thank you, goodbye!