Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz - Mastering the Balance Between Work, Life & Love with Dr. Karyn Gordon

Episode Date: September 23, 2024

Dr. Karyn Gordon joins Dr. Mindy to delve into a unique approach to work-life balance focused on energy management. Dr. Karyn, a former therapist turned leadership and relationship expert, discusses the importance of vision and systematic strategies in professional and personal life. They highlight managing different life 'buckets' like career, friendships, and health, emphasizing self-awareness and self-care. The conversation also touches on nurturing fulfilling friendships and maintaining strong, supportive connections. Tailored for middle-aged women, this episode offers valuable insights on enhancing energy levels and achieving harmony between work and personal life. To view full show notes, more information on our guests, resources mentioned in the episode, discount codes, transcripts, and more, visit https://drmindypelz.com/ep254 Dr. Karyn Gordon holds a Doctorate in Marriage & Family and certifications in leadership, Emotional Intelligence, and career direction. With 25 years of experience as a professional registered therapist and executive coach, she practices what she preaches – embracing a 'work smart, play hard' philosophy. Her hobbies include interior design, tennis, skiing, travelling and cherishing moments with her husband of 22 years, twin teenagers, friends, and two energetic puppies in their home north of Toronto. Check out our fasting membership at resetacademy.drmindypelz.com. Please note our medical disclaimer.

On this episode of The Resetter podcast, I bring you Dr. Karen Gordon. Now, I've brought you Dr. Karen before. We did a whole thing on leadership and on relationships because she has a very interesting background where she is a therapist, traditional therapist, that used to work just one-on-one in her clinic, and then she moved into leadership and working with corporations. and then that morphed into helping not just people with the business side of their life, but also helping them with the relationship of their life. And I will tell you that, but my husband and I use her for our business.

We found her through Jesse Itzler and Sarah Blakely. They have used her. We've done whole long days on communication with her through our business, and my husband and I have used her for marriage support. So she's incredible. She has a really unique lens. And she has a great book out and a TED talk called The Three Chairs. She has a beautiful way of explaining things that just gets into your head. And on this conversation, I really wanted to bring her to you all to talk about work-life balance. It's something that I've been trying to master in my own life and have leaned into support from her. And you're going to hear in this interview some of the things that she's helped me with. You're going to hear some of the ways in which we look at work-life balance, which you probably have never heard of.

You're going to hear how do you choose the right relationships so that they're supportive of a great work-life balance. And then I love where we ended on, which is if you master all this, do you really need a vacation? This was a fun part of the conversation. So this is a philosophical conversation on work-life balance that I think we all should be having. And one of the downsides of podcasting is I can't see all your beautiful faces. And I can't see your reaction to these conversations only through the messages you leave me in reviews.

But I'm really hoping that if you were in a room with Dr. Karen and I, you would understand this is the type of conversation we have. Just to make sure that we are both moving our own lives in positive directions. So an intimate conversation with my dear friend, Dr. Karen Gordon, she has, for those of you that are interested in doing her women in entrepreneur mastermind. So if you're in an entrepreneur or a doctor in practice, she does masterminds that we will leave links for in here for you. And she's just a beautiful human with a unique gift to help us figure out how to balance it all. And I'm not sure where my life would be without this woman. So I am so happy to bring this. conversation and this beautiful soul to you, Dr. Karen Gordon.

Welcome to the Resetter podcast. This podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself again. If you have a passion for learning, if you're looking to be in control of your health and take your power back, this is the podcast for you. I am so excited to have this conversation with you, which is a conversation. You're surprised I've never had. And it's literally because I have, I didn't have the right person until you and I talked. So I am so glad. I'm so excited your hair. I'm so excited to talk to you. Of course, you're one of my favorite people. But just this topic around women and balance and mindset and well, like all of it. It's just like such an important topic. Yeah. So you know, something, just to give you some context, it was like about a year and a half

ago, I was in on the diary of the CEO and like the very, like towards, you know, our number three of the interview, we, it came up about women and the work week. And Stephen asked me, he's like, do you, what kind of work week would you plan for a woman? And it was funny. I had never really, like, thought of that question. And I said, well, I wouldn't plan a work week for us. I would plan a work month. And then Stephen and I ended up in this really beautiful conversation about how women should work, should, you know, what a work life should look like for a woman. And ever since then, I've been really thinking about it more and more about how you would set up a work life balance that would be perfect for a female body. So I want to start with that and I want to

explore this with you. I actually want to start with this idea of how, how, you, you know, how, What would a successful work week or successful work month look like for a woman? Oh, this is such a good topic. So one of the things that is really important when we talk about balance, and I do this whether it's with business owners or entrepreneurs or, you know, whatever that role is that we all have, is we have to kind of think about what does success look like for us? What does success look like for work?

And what does success look like on our personal side? because one of the things that's really interesting is that is that people are going to define it differently, right? So the first step that is really critical is for all of us to have a vision with what does success look like. So that could be around nutrition and exercise and sleep. That could be about how many hours we want to work. That could be around how much time we want to spend with our spouse or our children. We have to have the vision because without the vision, it's like we don't know what we don't know what we're creating. It's like there's too many variables.

And so when we think about balance, that's the first thing I really want people to think about is you have to really stop and reflect on what does success look like for me first. And then you kind of reverse engineer it. Then you kind of think about, all right, how do I then structure my time to match my vision? It's like these two puzzle pieces that have to kind of come together. And then when we talk about the time piece and we'll kind of get into that, you know, throughout this podcast is to realize that our time is not equally weighted. And if we don't manage our time, then we're not, so if we're not clear about our vision, and now we're not managing our time to match our vision, what's going to happen is we're going to have stress.

So the emotional impact and the physical impact is going to be huge if we don't really get our ducks in a row. So this is why this topic is just so critical of the role. That really, it impacts all of us. Yeah. Do you think the work week, like five days of work, two days off, works for anybody? Do you think like it's, you know, I remember when I was in practice, I really started to see a trend with my patients that they were literally working to live a life that they love two days out of seven. Right, right. And I think it's different for everybody. And I think I think that the question we want to ask yourself is your level of energy. What is your emotional energy after you work three days or four days or five days?

Do some people prefer, for example, to work like three longer shifts of 12 hours and then have the rest of the week off? So it's a really personal thing. And the other thing about it too, Mindy, I found like I've been a business owner for, you know, over 25 years like you. But what I would define as a successful work week now is different because my boys are teenagers. When they were little, I wanted to have literally a two-day practice. To me, success was a two-day practice where I could basically, you know, you know, go to my practice and see my patients and work with them. But then to do the drop off and the pickup was major success for me.

I thought I can do whatever I want to do. But as long as I can do drop off and I can do pickup, then I feel like I've kind of got my ducks in a row. And so that's where, again, we have to circle back to that question about what is my vision and what does success look like for me in this stage of my life, in the stage with my family, the stage with my children.

And then you can, you know, hopefully you can kind of redesign. or shifted or, you know, as we kind of go through different stages. So let's create some buckets. You know, when we look at like a successful life, you know, you've got your success in your career. Yeah. You have your success maybe as a parent. And everybody listening to this podcast says, you know, if they have kids, a very different age kids, you have your success as a friend. Like, you know, I can tell you where I've landed in my life right now, my friends are like gold to me.

as you know, like I just love like connecting to my friends. And then I have my success, you know, in my marriage. I have my success in health. Right. So there's those are a lot of buckets. Yeah. To try to balance. So is it time spent on all those different successes or is it my, how fulfilled I am in all those areas? And is this a work week that should change at every, week because where I put my efforts because of how drained or full those relationship buckets feel. They are. Do you see where I'm going? For sure.

And it's a great question. So it is absolutely the different buckets. So the buckets of work and career, buckets of friendship and relationships, buckets for ourselves. Okay? This is a huge thing for a lot of women. Yeah. Okay.

So a lot of women, we feel guilty. There's the guilt factor. We know, we can do a whole segment about the guilt factor about how a lot of us don't do, you know, we just feel so guilty. we take time for herself. So you have all of these different buckets and they all require amount of time and energy, but how much time and energy is really personal? So for example, you know, for some people listening, they're like, you know what, on the work side, if I do 30 hours on the work side, I love it, I'm energized, I love this kind of work. And so

that might be like the right bucket for that person. Another person might be like, you know what, I actually like 50 hours or the relationship. Some people might say, like I want to spend an hour with my spouse. Another person is like, you know what, actually like 20 minutes is like good for me. Right. So, so you can see, you have to kind of think about what is the amount of time for these different kind of buckets that I really need to be kind of prioritizing in my, in my day. And I would actually say that it's not so much the amount of time. It's the quality or the depth. Quality. It's a quality of the depth. And especially for, and you probably are like the same way, I don't want to like for friendships, for example, I have such little time that I'm very careful in terms of who I surround myself with

and how I invest that time. And I, my husband will say to me all the time, like, he watches my emotional energy. When I hang out with so-and-so, he's like, I love, I love it when you hang out with so-and-so's because you come home and you're energized, right? You're energized and you're filled. And he goes, you know, one hour with that friend is like way better than five hours with that friend. So it's not the, it's not the amount of hours. It's what happens to, emotionally, what happens to our emotional energy when we're doing spending time, certain people are doing some kind of work that, because that to me is when we can really tap into and understand the art and the science of that, it's very powerful because it's not so much about the hours.

It's the richness and the impact that actually has on us emotionally that we really want to pay attention to. Okay. I think you're bringing up a really interesting point. And, you know, I had a friend, and I feel like we had this conversation before, but I had a friend who, whenever we got together, we were just so happy. And then we left each other's being with each other. We're so happy. And we called it a positive energy exchange. Oh, I love it.

And so we, I would literally at the end of a work week, and it was really interesting because I was a working mom. She was a stay home mom. And by Friday, I would send her a message and I'd be like, hey, I'm going to get done at work at 2 o'clock today. I'm going to grab the kids and I'm coming up to your house because I need a positive energy exchange. And it became this like code to be like, I need to come and get filled up. Wow.

And then I started to look at all the areas in my life that had these positive energy exchanges. And what I found is that if I could put myself in environments that lit me up, then it never felt like I needed any kind of balance. The only time I needed work-life balance was when things were draining me and stressing me, then I needed to balance it with things that brought me joy and energized me. So I like to look at it through that lens of these environments energizing me. These drain me. How do I balance that out?

Is that one way you would recommend? 100%. And you can do that in literally every bucket. Okay. So for anybody who is a business owner, an entrepreneur practice owner, you can do that. in your business. You ask yourself when we work a business owners, we'll ask them, look at how you're spending your day. Look at the task that you're actually doing.

What jobs that you do energize you and what to plate you. And ideally what you want to do is kind of create your business and your team so that you are only focusing on the jobs and the tasks that you love to do. And because that way, you know, we could be working lots of hours. We feel totally energized. Friendships are the same thing. Think about the friends that you have. What are the friends that you, when you're with them, you feel so energized. What are the friends that actually feel kind of really drained? Think about your

children. Think about the activities. Think about with your children. What are the activities that you do that you feel so energized? What are the activities that you do? They're kind of a bit drained. We think also about when. You know, we might also find that there's a certain time of the day that we actually feel more energized with our children or our spouse. So it's like all of these kind of intersections. But, you know, I find for myself, like I can feel very tired. Maybe I've had a full day or full week. And then you put me on a speaking stage and my energy just goes through the ring. You probably the same, right? And people are like, oh my goodness.

I'm the same exact way. Yeah. How do you have so much energy? And right before I'll be like, I'm so tired. I'm so tired. Me too. It's like, oh, traveling is so tired. I find traveling really, I find traveling really tiring.

But put me on a stage and it's like the whole thing kind of like lights up. And so that's why I've learned, okay, I just have to make sure I'm prioritizing so much speaking and conferences because I really quite love it. I don't like the traveling to and from, but I love the actual being there. And then, oh, this is the other thing, Mindy about that is that what I do is then I piggyback with things that will energize me. So, for example, because I find traveling but usually by itself draining, I will try to piggyback with either my husband comes with me or one of my kids will come with me or I'll try to

book an extra day at the spa before or after or I'll get my nails down at the airport or I'll do something that will kind of help to balance out the parts of that that's actually draining so that I'm, So in many ways, when we think of a balance, we're really wanting to be a strategist on understanding our energy management. It's really about energy management and really starting to pay attention to that and then designing it according to with whatever that vision is that we actually, what are the goals and values that we have in our life. Yeah, I really like that because it's so funny. I have done that exact scenario where I'm like, want, I don't really want to do this. I mean, whatever it is. And then I do it and all of a sudden I'm so energized and then I get done doing it.

And I'm like, wait a second. I thought I didn't have energy to do that. So I started to realize that actually this concept for me, the concept of balance feels difficult to attain. But the concept of where do I get my energy from? What lights me up? And how do I do more of what lights me up? Now I actually can start to build weeks that feel better for me.

And it's like I flipped it. I had to reverse it. It was like, don't. And this leads it to my other question to you, which is, I think you said it earlier. As women, my old brain used to do all the responsible things first and then the energizing things or all the responsible things, all everybody else's needs. Right. And then I would take care of my own needs.

And what I found is sometimes, like, maybe it was working out. What I found is like if I did it that way, by the time I got to my workout, it was like I was exhausted. Or maybe I dragged myself to ladies' night and I was totally wiped out. And it just didn't serve me. But I think a lot of women were so taught how to people please, how to do the right thing for everybody else that we leave no room for ourselves. So how do we help us understand why it's important for us to put ourselves, I'm going to say first, because this is the time of life I'm in.

And how do we do that without guilt? Because you mentioned that earlier. So guilt is, it is so interesting on if there is one emotion that comes up the most with women that I work with, it's guilt. It's fasting, actually. Guilt. Wow. Yeah, guilt. Stress would be kind of a very close second, but I'd even say guilt is it even in is in the front runner. And I think they, it's like we're such a givers, right? We give and then we're now at risk for burnout. And I remember when I was doing my master's at the time. And I went, you know, for a lot of people who go into into psychology and counseling, you know, they're givers, right? It's like a natural part kind of part of our personality. So, so I remember my one of my favorite professors, he said to our class, he said to our class, he said, He said most of you will not be practicing in 10 years because the risk at the rate of burnout is so high for anybody's kind of in health care and with, you know, healthcare professionals. We see it. I mean, I'm sure you saw it a lot when you were practicing. And so, right? And so it's the son.

And so what he basically said is you have to kind of really think this through that we have this really toxic. There's a toxic belief system out there that I am not a good, fill in a blank. I'm not a good mother, a spouse, a friend, if I put myself first, that somehow it's selfish. And I'm being selfish if I take care of myself first. And therefore, I just give. And then, of course, if we give without taking care of herself, that's where we're at risk for burnout. And he said, you've got to really challenge that because that is actually a really toxic mindset. And it's actually not true. So it's not about selfish. It's about self-care. So if I don't take care of myself, I have nothing to give. And once I realized, and I did that mental shift, and I kind of

replace the toxic thought with the new thought, it's like, oh, I have to take care of myself. That self-care is so that I can be a great wife and a great mother and a great, you know, business person, all that great friend. And so, and it's interesting because you know my husband. And Brent will say to me, he'll say, Karen, you're the best version of yourself when you take care of yourself and you're the worst version of yourself when you don't. Like, you know, if there's one person that's going to give us that honest feedback, it's going to be our spouse or, you know, or our children. So, so I, the guilt, it's interesting, Mindy. And you again, you would see this all the time too. A lot of times people think that guilt is a problem. Guilt is not the problem. Guilt is not the

problem. People think that guilt is a problem or stress is a problem. Emotions are our friend as a, they're like a little referee going, oh, you're off. Hello. They're like trying to get our attention. That's not the problem. It's like poor guilt and stress and even anxiety. I think it's very bad PR. It's like, everyone's like, oh, I'm like, I'm guilty. And I'm like, no, no, they're there to help you. When we have these emotions, they're like a little referee on the sideline of our life going, you're a little off. You've got to pay attention. And when we are, when it's usually guilt, it's because we're not taking care of ourselves a lot of times. Or we're making a decision that's not in alignment with our value system. If we're feeling stress, it's. it's usually because of time. If we're feeling anxious, it's usually because we're focusing on something we cannot control. If we feel depressed, it's usually because we're focusing something of the past.

So all these feelings are not the bad guy. They're a little referee to say, stop and think about how you're actually going to be living your life. What changes do you need to be making so that you can actually get yourself better in a better alignment emotionally? And when you do that, all of a sudden, your thinking pattern will shift and then also that can affect your performance at all these

different parts of your life. Yeah, I love that. And so can you, when you feel emotion, so let's take depression as an example. You know, I mean, my audience has heard me talk about this all summer long. Like I've been in this real self sort of exploration place the last couple of years, but it really came to a peak this summer. And I had some weeks where I was really depressed. And I can, and a friend of mine said, well, why don't you ask the depression what it wants? And so I was like, okay, what are you? Why are you here? Why am I feeling you? Right. And I, for me, what I finally came up with is I'm depressed when I'm betraying myself, when I'm like putting all, like all the have tos ahead of what Mindy herself wants to do. Yeah. That's right. And then I just realized like, okay,

then what does Mindy want to do? do. And that was a shocking question because at I'm almost 55, I realized that I've never asked myself that question. Wow. It has always been like, what does the family need? What is your, what is your husband need? What is your practice need? What do your employees need? Like, everything was about everybody else's need. And I heard nothing when I was like, well, what do I want? what do I need? And I've been having this conversation with a lot of women. And they very much identify with this, like, how do I know what I need? How do I know what fills me up? I've just been a professional at making sure everybody else around me is filled up. And now you want me to ask myself,

what fills me up? Right. Like, how do we help? Where do we start there? Because that was a real shocking truth for me. So you know what I love? First of all, maybe thank you so much for sharing that, because obviously that is very, that is from your heart and that is very raw and very real and something that, you know, many people listening can really relate to it. And what I love about what you just said is that you stopped, you recognized, I feel depressed. And instead of saying, staying there and stuck, and this is where a lot of people will get stuck. So like I feel depressed. I feel, so it's just staying there. You stopped, you reflected. I love that your friend's question. What is it? What is it telling you? And then you leaned into it. And then because of the

that then you took action. It's the taking action with whatever that message is from our feelings that is going to make it make the shift. And so, you know, for a lot of people when they feel depressed, it's usually because of the past and it's usually something they have deep sadness about. And what I'm hearing from you, it's like there's deep sadness that you kind of lost yourself based on I'm hearing in the midst of all the crazy success, it's like all of a sudden people can really lose themselves. And all of a sudden that there are success and whatever that is can take off. work with a lot of very high profile different clients. And this is a very common thing. All of a sudden, it's like they're working so hard to kind of get to a stage. All of a sudden, they just kind of, you know,

go to this kind of like next level. And it's like, and a lot of times they sometimes feel like they, they lose control. Other people are controlling their schedule. Other people, everybody wants, something. They have to kind of be on guard. They got to be on guard. It's like, okay, are they coming to use me? Or they like, so they become, so then their circle gets really tight because they got to really be careful in terms of who they're kind of like letting into that inner circle. And then all of a sudden they become maybe sometimes distrusting. And it's like a whole. And then sometimes, honestly, sometimes I've had clients over the years.

I mean, I don't know if this is you. They kind of want to go back to their old life. I kind of miss how simple it was before. It was simple. Like, do I really want this? Do I really want this amount of success and attention and people knowing who I am? And so it's so there's a huge kind of emotional shift. And so for, you know, for you to kind of come to that place and realize like, okay, I feel depressed, maybe a bit sad. I, what do I really want?

And then what are the action steps I need to do to start to create it? So your question was a really good one. Like how to help people figure that out. A couple things. Yeah. The action steps. The action steps. Okay. So a couple things. We have a really great simple one pager. It's like seven steps on self-care. So you can download, you can get it off of our website, dkleadership.org, but that's a great. It's a one-pageer. And it's seven steps to walk people through around what are the things that I need to start doing to take care of myself, self-care. So this is because it all starts with self-awareness. If we don't know ourselves, then we're not going to be able to create the plan. But to your point, a lot of people don't really know where to start. So I like, I like one-pager,

just to simplify it, but things like, you know, what do I need to take care of myself? Simple things. How many hours of sleep do I need? What kind of foods do I need? Who are the people in my life that I need to kind of spend more time with? Who are the people in my life that I maybe need to kind of create a little bit distance from? What kind of work? What kind of work do I need to say yes to? What kind of work do I need to start saying no to? And so what you do is like, so once you start going through the questions, it's like, the way I describe it to clients, it's like if I have bad eyesight, my eyes are blurry. I can't see. But once we have some of these tools, it's like somebody's giving us a set of glass and you're like, oh, okay, this is do, I can do this. I can do this. And for

everybody listening, this is so important, not only for us as adults, as parents, as women, these are the tools that once we know how to do it, we teach it to our children. We teach it to our children so that our children know. So let me give you an example. We have twins as, you know, they're 17. And a few years ago when we were, and this is timely actually because of, you know, with school starting everything. But when they were little, I'd say maybe grade four, three or grade three or grade four.

I remember asking them, I said, I want you to really start paying attention to what you need. This is, these are conversations that are home. And they're like, what do you mean, ma'am? What do you mean? And I'm like, sons, it's important that you learn to get to know. yourself, you have to have a solid sense of self, know with what you need. And they're like, well, what do you mean? I said, I want you to think about the curricular, this is about extracurricular activities. There's going to be lots and lots of options. But just because they're all out there,

doesn't mean you should be doing them. So I want you to really start thinking about yourself and what you need and so that you feel energized at the end of the week. So do you want to be out five days a week? Do you want to be out three days a week? Do you want to be having like one program that think about your love, your emotional energy? And I said, started talking to them about it. And what was interesting, Mindy, is that our kids are different. One's more extroverted ones, more introverted. And the extroverted one said, I want to be out like five days a week and I want to do this program. And the introverted one said, you know what? I actually just want to be out like two days a week because I really want my quiet at home. Perfect. So we had this

conversation and then based on that data, we helped that to design what kind of activities that they should say yes to with what they know to. But we weren't able to do that without having that conversation. And it's really interesting because one of things when we work with business, you know, we work with businesses all over, as you know, and they actually, one of the big complaints that I'm hearing from a lot of business owners and entrepreneurs and professionals is that a lot of the next generation, they don't know how to make decisions because people have been telling them with what to do. And you probably and so it's parents, yeah. And so parents, if you're all parents listening, it is really important that we are not controlling and dictating what we think our kids need. have to engage them in that conversation so that they can start having the self-awareness. Because as a mom, I could have been like, okay, the one needs five days, one, no, but I'm not going to serve them in the big picture. So we have to, so this whole self-care topic is so important, not only just for us so that we are taking care of ourselves, but also that we actually

teach you with your children, too. So, okay, when we're looking through the lens, then where my brain is going is work-life balance is really about energy balance. And making sure. that you are balancing what lights you up and what drains you. Yes. And I'm thinking that by the end of the week, you should have been in more situations that lit you up and less situations that drained you. Otherwise, you know, you're going to come slamming into Sunday and you just want to sit on the couch and do nothing. So it's really energy management. It really is. Yes. It totally is energy management. It is energy management. Yeah, it's really energy management. And you have to be very aware of it and constantly be thinking about this because it will change.

It will change with our cycles, right? When we talk about it, right, the women's body. Right. So it will change with our cycles. It will change with seasons. Our energy management in the summer is going to be different in the winter. It will change with the ages of our children with what it'll change. This is really big for anybody who's a practice owner or an entrepreneur, your energy

management will be different at this stage of your business growth. Very interesting. Startups versus companies. that have been around for 10 years. I can see the different energy management that's different. And so it's not, it's like all of these, it's like these details that really kind of make the difference. But if we can all be really intentional about it and say, okay, in this season right now, I'm just going to take, I'm just going to start really small. In this season right now, in this month, and this week, and maybe you could even boil it down to in one day, what do I, how do I need to

design my time so that I am energized at the end of the day. And because exactly like you said, you want to be wrapping up your day and your week with still energy left over. If you're completely exhausted and burned out by Friday, that's not a good sign. And so what changes you actually have to make? And so, yeah, but it is energy management. Yeah, I really, that's like a real aha for me as where in just in this conversation because, you know, I have so many things in my life right now that excite me. Right. And so it's learning how to balance them all so that my energy stays high, you know, in the place I want all week. Yeah. But I want to talk about entrepreneurial life or if you have a job where it just, you love, like one of the challenges, and this is why I like

looking at work-life balance as energy management is because I love my job. I love what I do. I know you love your job too. And so there's like this addictive quality to it because it's very exciting. So what do we do when you have a bit of a workaholic tendency because work gives you so much significance, it gives you so much positive interaction. You know, for some people, it's like giving you good money. Right. So there's like, there's a really like sparky energy there. And so I can't, you know, if I look at that compared to maybe. my marriage and my marriage doesn't have that same energy. Now, you know, how do you balance those two? And I know what, like some of the things that I've done is look at the areas that don't have as

aren't as sparky to my brain and been like, well, how do I bring the energy back to this situation? But how, you know, I think a lot of people have a tendency to fall into work because they're numbing themselves from something else in their life that they don't want to deal with. 100%. And work, especially work that we love, I see this a lot with entrepreneurs, is that is 100% I think one of the biggest dangers. Because for all the reasons that you said, there's a lot of positive benefits that come from working, recognition, money, you know, success, you know, like all that kind of stuff. So, right, so there's a natural draw. I remember one of the entrepreneurs I was working with, he goes, he remembers him saying to me, he goes, Karen, he goes, life is so much

easier at the business. It's so much, I know what I'm doing. I know what I'm doing. I get all the, everybody loves me, like lots of accolades. I get paid well. And then I go home and I'm like, wow. Right? And he's like, I don't know what I'm doing on the home side. And I feel like I'm doing anything wrong. So I just want to go back to the office because I know how to do that part of my life well. And so, so I think it's a really, it's a really good question. So the way to kind of figure it out, okay, on the business side, on the entrepreneur, for anybody who said an entrepreneur listening or a practice owner, the first step is to really start doing a bit of an audit for yourself about what are the parts of your job that you would love to do and what are the parts of the job that you don't like to do. And obviously, if somebody's a startup

or a solopreneur versus somebody who's got, you know, a huge team, you know, whether or not they can delegate is going to be, you know, you know, that's going to be a question mark. But that ideally on the business side is like, and is to really start thinking about what are the jobs that I really need to start kind of delegating to. Because the ideal is for that entrepreneur to be only doing what they love to be doing. That is the ideal. You know, that is like the ideal. Just do the parts that you love and you literally give everything else to the rest of your team. That is the sweet spot because not only is that going to be good for the entrepreneur, they're going to kind of kind of like really tapped into their own unique ability and skill set. So it's only going to

help the business. It literally every everybody wins. The business will win, but also the entrepreneur will. So that's kind of like the ideal, all right? So that's the ideal. For anybody listening who is an employee, you work as part of a team, I would still encourage you do the same thing. Really take and do a little audit for yourself. What are the parts of my job that I really love? What are the parts that I find a bit draining? And then possibly have that conversation with your manager, have that conversation with the person that you work with because, you know, some people love the vision. They love the strategy. And other people love the details. I can't stand. Details to me. We are like so draught errands. I'm like, oh my goodness, play somebody to take. I'm like, let me stay high level, vision. Let me focus on like big relationships. And so when I kind of stay in that laneway, I'm going to, I can work lots of hours. So, so that's kind of like the first step is to kind of really take an audit of that. And then you can do it with the other different kind of parts of yourself. But you want to really, you want to make sure that you're designing your life based on your value system.

So your question was around work-haulism, which is, I think, again, really important. So you want to figure out how to kind of manage the different tasks in that in terms of the business. That being said, you also want to ask yourself, this kind of goes back to my first question, but your vision, what does success look like for you? What does your vision look like for you? So, for example, if I think about some of the entrepreneurs that I work with, they would say, I want to have a great business and I want to have a great marriage. And so that's kind of part of their vision.

I'm like, okay, great. So, and then I would ask them, okay, well, tell me about the business. Well, the business is doing great. Okay, great. Tell me about the marriage. Well, the marriage is not doing so great. So there's going to be not right there. There's going to be a tendency to kind of then put all of their energy over here because

they know how to do that. And but you don't want to do that because at the end of the day, if this is part of their success and this is really with what they want to do, they've got to start giving time and energy over here. Otherwise, they're going to have a failed marriage and that's not going to be their success that they actually want. So sometimes there is a season. where we have to kind of lean in and say, okay, even though this is not energizing for me,

even though this is not lighting me up, this is part of my value system. This is part of my success. So I need to learn some tools and find a program or a coach or somebody to help me so I can figure out how I can light this part of my life up again. And that's really important because otherwise it's going to die out. What do you, you know, it's interesting as you're talking. I was thinking, You have a really interesting perspective because you're both a leadership coach, you do relationship coaching. And so it's interesting as you're speaking.

I was like, I think a lot of us do find a little bit of a tug-of-war between our jobs and our relationships. And what do you see specifically for women that they struggle with the most when they're trying to balance all of these relationships? with their careers. Oh, that's a good question. So yeah, it is definitely a unique laneway. I don't know anybody that does what I do because of exactly what you said. Yeah, it's really interesting. Well, and it's because I started, as you know my story, I started with families and marriage. Yeah. And then over the last 20 years now, work with mostly businesses. And so, and it's interesting. So when I do

executive coaching, people love that. They're like, oh, so can we like talk about the business and the team and oh, but you know what? Can we just like save the last like 20 minutes and let's talk about. That's what? Yeah. Right. Like so, you know, so. That's why we love you. Yeah. It's like, okay. Well, divide up the time and, you know, obviously I love working with you guys. And so it is really that it's an interesting place because they're so interconnected. So when we talk about women, so women in particular, on the business side, a lot of them struggle with delegation. They want to kind of manage everything. And so that would be the big one on the business side. As it relates to the marriage side, I would actually say the biggest thing that I see is that if they don't really feel like they've got a partner at home,

if there is one common line I hear with a lot of women is I don't have a partner. I don't hear a partner. And this is also interesting, Mindy, with women that make more than their husbands or their partner. And a lot of sometimes the husbands will be like, you know, I don't make as much. And I'm like, they don't really care about that. Like a lot of women, most women, certainly that I work with, I find they don't really care about whether or not people are making, bringing, in the same amount of money, what they do care about is their sense of partnership. Is there a really great sense of a division of labor so that, you know, that husbands and wives are really working as a team that, you know, that's very clear in terms of with what they're

each working on and how they're kind of contributing. And when they have that sense of partnership, then all of a sudden they just feel a lot better. And because I think what happens is that, you know, again, in business we're kind of giving or professionally we're giving. But if we come home and that relationship is not energizing for us, it kind of depletes us. Right. Or we feel like, okay, great, now I have to take care of that person. Like, they're my husband. Talk about a major turnoff. Like, that is going to completely really impact that relationship. So I really encourage anybody listening, you know, if you're in a relationship, focus on how are we doing as a team? Like, how are we doing in terms of, how are we doing as a team in terms of our vision? So, like,

As you know how I work, with businesses, I get them to think about what's the vision that you have for your organization. And then let's kind of get all the people lined up and clarify their roles to kind of really accelerate that vision. But I want couples to do the exact same thing. What is the vision that you have as a couple? And have you kind of really figured out your system on the marriage side so that there's a real sense of partnership so that as a unit you can actually achieve your vision? And a lot of people just don't do that. You know what I'm just thinking is you could do that in everything. So I'm wondering if the typical approach to our life is, okay, this is my career or this is my business.

I'm going to pour my heart and soul into it. Then when we step out of that, now we're looking at the other parts of our life and we're naturally gravitating to the parts that energize us. But I would be curious as I'm listening to you talk. I'm thinking, you know, maybe it energizes us because we have a vision for it. Yes. And so would it be helpful to have, you know, I mean, of course I would say it would be helpful to have a vision for your health.

Would it be helpful to have a vision for your friendships? And I'm going to ask you a really interesting question about friendships here in a moment. Would you have a vision for your marriage? So now when you step into that container and you go out of the container of work and you go into these other containers, they too feel like there's an energy to them as opposed to just they're happening. A hundred percent. And I love, love, love of the way that you clarify that. it's like the containers and we're like tapping into it.

So what's the vision for each of these different containers? Okay, that's the first part. Get clarity of the vision because without the vision, we don't know what we're saying yes or no to. And then this is really important in each of these buckets to have a system, not to get too technical, but this is really important. What is your system and your task that you need to be doing so that you can actually achieve your vision? So in business, you know, right, as you know with business, we have to have what's a vision?

then what are the tasks and the cadences that we have to have to making sure that we're in alignment with the vision. The same thing happens with couples and marriages, have the vision, but then what are your systems that you need to have in place so that you can actually, so that it's easy, right? When things are, when there's a cadence and there's a rhythm, it's like, okay, we have a flow. We've got a flow right now. Like I know when laundry is getting done. I know when grocery shopping is getting done. I know because my husband and I have figured out, one of the, one of the groups I was speaking out. They're like, Karen, you need to do like a one pager on SOPs for dummies. It was a bunch of husbands, actually. And I thought that was like so good. I don't have it yet. I've got to create it.

So, but I thought that was really interesting. Like SOP systems for couples because if we don't have a system, it's great. Because if we don't have a system, it's very chaotic. It's like, what do we have for dinner? I don't know. Like, are you going to pick up in it? It's very chaotic. That's what happens. If you don't have a system to match your vision, life is very chaotic. And then energy, energy draining. Yes. And it drains all the energy so that all of a sudden people say, I can't even think about what to make for dinner. I can't even think. It's like all of their best energy has been used up based on this chaos. But if you have a clear vision and then you have a system that is this rhythm that you know kind of when things are going to happen, it becomes like, it becomes this flow.

And that's going to give you and save you enormous, amazing. a time and energy. And that's why people have smell the time. How do I have so much energy? I am like super into this. But I have finessed it and I watch it and I and I, you know, and as I'm in perimenopods, like, I'm like, oh, this is like different. Okay. I got to really, I got to change up my algorithm. My algorithm is a little bit different right now. My emotional algorithm is like, oh, this is like really different than two years ago. And so you have to be really aware and keep your eye on it. But then once you do, you're going to have energy left over. You know, so this really well segues into the energy system of friendship.

So when I'm curious your thoughts on this because one of the balancing act that I've had for 25 years has been my career, right, my family, or my, you know, parenting, my spouse, my friends and my health. And it's like that's what I've been balancing. And I've sometimes picked friends that I would call our situational friends. They're friends because our kids hung out together or they were friends because they were a neighbor and they were just really easy to grab. Or we had some kind of situation that has brought us together.

Well, recently I was actually listening or reading an article in the New York Times and it was saying that we have the capacity for about 150 relationships at one time. And it categorized him according to the top tier, middle tier, and then the bottom tier was like acquaintances. Right. And it said that the top tier, like your besties, max you can get five, more than five. And now it's a lot of energy to keep those relationships where they were. Middle tier, you could have like 15. These are like the soccer mom on the side of the soccer game that like, you know, you happen to see on Saturdays or maybe.

somebody at your yoga class that you see all the time and then everybody else is a bottom tier what do you and then the article actually went on to say should you go and tell the middle tier people they're middle tier people no no definitely not don't tell them don't is yeah that's your own private dialogue yeah but i've never thought to categorize my relate my friendships that way so and now as i'm looking through the work life balance eyes and the life of the energy balance lens i'm thinking there's some truth to this that I can only put so much energy into so many friendships before it starts to become a drain. Right. So what do you think of that? I love it. And I've seen an article similar like that of it maybe 10 years ago. And I think maybe that's when I started to do it around these

different tiers, you know, and it's interesting because people can move up and down those tiers, right? And so when I think about, yeah, that's what they said. Yeah. And so when I think about my top tier, those are those are people that I know what my value system is and they meet all the values. So tier one and two for me is there is a complete alignment of value system. There's a hundred percent alignment of what my top values are. There's an alignment. Tier three for me, they might have like three of the five. I focus on five values.

They might have like three of the five, but they may not have all them. But the third tier is more like community. So like the first tier is like the inner-circern. And then the second tier is kind of like exactly, as you said, kind of like your close people that you would share a lot with. But then the bottom tier is kind of more like it's your community, so to speak. But it doesn't have so much to do with necessarily how often you talk about. It's the depth of the relationship that really kind of makes a difference. And so it definitely is, and I think for anybody again who is health professional in a job where you're giving, giving,

you become even more protective around who is going to be a. and that kind of like that top tier, that tier, top tier. Yeah. And all you have to do is ask yourself, when you're with that person, do you feel energized? Because that top tier, and I'd say top one and two, do you feel energized by, because that's what you've got to really protect those, protect those places. And my husband and I talk about this actually all the time. And he said, he calls us third tier almost like it's a little bit, people ebb and flow from it. It could be like, it could be like people in your community, like the school moms or the soccer moms.

or, you know, your neighbors that are this close by. You really enjoy being with them, but they're more of your community. Would you go and fly to go see them for a weekend if they move away? Probably not, right? So you enjoy them, but there's not as much of an investment. By top one and two, there's more of an emotional time and energy investment. What do you do? One friendship that I'm very careful to not completely engage in,

and it's very common for women is the, you know, trauma bonding or the bitching bonding. Yeah. Where you are bitching about husbands or you're bitching about other women or, and you could almost feel energized from that. But I have found that I've had to move away from some of those toxic relationships because I didn't like who I was becoming in them. Yeah.

I didn't want to be that complainer. So I think I want to just touch on that for a hot moment because I think as women, we should be really careful where how we lift each other up and that we don't lift each other up through this toxic behavior. Because that could be energizing too. Yeah. And it depends. You know, I find I find people who blame and complain extremely draining. I actually, if there's two things, if there's two things that I find really draining in relationships, it's small talk. I find small talk really. draining and I find I find people who complain or play the victim really draining. It's, oh, it's like, and it's not that, you know, so when I think about the people that I love and cherish, it's not that everybody has like these perfect lives. Everybody's got issues and problems. But what I find so energizing is when I have a friend that is if they're going through a really difficult time, they're processing it and they're sharing, but their focus, Mindy, is on,

this is where I'm at, I got to figure out with what I need to do differently. If the focus is not on bitching about it, it's forward focus. And then so all of a sudden, our conversation becomes still, and it's not toxic positivity where we're just kind of like glossing over, you know, what they're feeling. It's like you let the person still sit with that feeling because that's really important. And then it's like shifting gears in a car. All of a sudden, then they kind of shift into kind of like, what do I need to do different so that I can kind of get myself into a new place. I find that so energizing when I talk to my friends about, right? Like, it's kind of, it's for, it's hopeful, it's optimistic. So, and so what's often tricky with

friendships, certainly with women is that as we evolve and we get healthier and hopefully emotionally healthier, physically healthier, spiritually healthier, as we get healthier, all of a sudden, we're going to start looking at a relationship differently because. Oh, yeah, we'll be less tolerant. We'll be the top. toxic ones will be less tolerant. And so I see that with a lot of people that I work with that as they get healthier and whether or not that it's in their business and their marriage, whatever it is, they're getting healthier and more clear. All of a sudden, they can sometimes go through a little bit of a season of loneliness because they're like, who am I hanging it out with? I'm not really, I'm not jiving with them anymore. Or maybe as somebody has more success, this is huge, all of a sudden, that friend, is jealous. You know, I was just actually watching Oprah recently. She was on the, she did this interview with Gail and they were interviewing somebody else. I forget who it was. I saw it. Who was it? It was Melinda Gates. Yeah. And how she talked about saying you cannot be friends with somebody who's jealous.

All of a sudden, if you don't, right, so is somebody, and again, this is something that I see a lot. If women are kind of becoming more successful, if you, however you define it, let's say in their career, externally successful, there are going to be some friends that are so happy for you. They're like, woo! And then there's other friends. They're like, yes. That's interesting. And they, and you know that they're not happy for you. And so all of a sudden there's going to be a disconnect. And so there tends to be, as people are becoming more externally successful, there can be a real disconnect and sometimes a little bit of grieving that actually happens going, oh, like sadness, actually. So it feels like a grief that all of a sudden, maybe friends that we thought were for us,

they're not really for us. And that is really, that is a really upsetting feeling for it, right? Because like, who have I been investing into? And so it, there has to be that pause going, okay, this is part of, this is part of life. This is part of growing pains. I'm allowed to feel sad about this. And I also now want to be really intentional about who do I want to spend time with. What are the values that I want to look for in my in friendships and who is a really good match and then being intentional, putting your little system together, be an intentional to making sure you're leaving time for that friend. Because the thing about friendship is that you need it, you do need to spend time. You need time. You need time. Yeah. You may not need a ton of time. And the really great friends,

you don't need a ton of time, but it goes deep. You know, you're laughing and you're crying. That to me is like a sign of a really great friend. When you can kind of have that range of emotions and you know that they have your back and that they want nothing more than for you to be successful and cheering for you. But that can be a real shift for sure. Yeah, it's really interesting. As you know, I'm a very deep thinker. And in just this conversation, I'm really starting to see that the work life balance

is really about energy balance. And the energy balance is really. about what lights you up and leaning into that and where do you have systems in place and how are you being intentional in all these areas of your life as opposed to just doing it right and maybe there's this sense you know about halfway through this conversation I was thinking do we even need a vacation because if your daily life is energizing you then they can't you know it's not like you have to be like oh my god I got to get away from this life I need to go to another life if every bucket is filling you up and you do have this balance, then there's almost like no need for a vacation.

Right. You know, it's a really good point. And maybe not this seven-day vacation. Maybe it's like, you know, actually a three-day vacation is all that I need because you're absolutely right. If we're kind of managing our energy so skillfully that's aligned with our, or all of these like these different buckets that we have, then we still have energy left over. So while it's great to still have holidays and a vacation, I want it, but I don't know. need it. It's not like my lifeline. It's not like, I'm like, I've got to get, you know, there's some people that they're literally, they're like just hanging on until the next one. And we don't want to, that's almost like a crisis management. That's not so. Exactly.

Yeah. You know, my parents were the classic crisis management. They were always like, oh, I got to go on a vacation. I got to go on a vacation. And I, as a child, I remember looking at that and being like, oh, you know, I equated to that, oh, you got to get away from the day to day because that's not fun anymore. So it was just an interesting side note that I had is that this work-life balance is really actually a little more simple than we think. Yeah. And once you dial it in, then, you know, all of a sudden maybe the vacation starts to take

on the lens of, well, what is my energy going to be like there? How am I going to get filled up there? Yes. And so you choose the right vacation according to how that is going to fill you up. And everything is just energy management. It's all. And then the other cool thing about it is that when I was just actually just even looking over my schedule this fall and I was looking at different kind of commitments I have.

I was thinking, you know, there was a couple weekends that my husband and I, we could go away, but there's a partner me like, no, you know what I really need is I just want to be home. Like to me, it, yeah, just to be home. Let's just be in our pajamas for like three days. Like let's like not, let's intentionally not do any socials. Let's like, right. Let's really like, what does? And so you start defining success a little differently. So the end goal, the vision is, want to be energized, but then what do I need in this season of my life to help me get there? And then how do I design it? And what can I say yes to with?

What can I say no to? So it takes a lot of reflection. But then once you figure it out, but once you figure it out, then now you got like these systems. Okay? So you got these systems. Yeah. So the systems around kind of your self-care, the systems around your sleep and nutrition. And, you know, what hours the day are, you know, do you work, do your best work?

You know, how many socials? Like, for example, I find, like in a typical weekend, I'm an extrovert, but I'm slightly on the introverted side. So a perfect weekend for me is I'm going out definitely at home. Like, I'm a bit of a home body, but definitely at least one really great social in my top one or two tiers and maybe another one in my top, in my third tier. But then if the third day is like nothing. I want Sunday like nothing. I want to be at home. I want to just do some kind of activity.

And so you figure, you play with like these different versions to figure out, oh, that's that, that's, that's. That's a good combination code for me. And so it's kind of fun. Like you kind of like think about it. Yeah. It's like, you know, do you have like I'm, you know, as you know, I'm from Canada, do you have like, I'm assuming you do. Like the combination code. Like you know the combination locks. Did you used to have those in your lockers in high school? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So we would have those. And that's how I kind of see it this topic. It's like we're figuring out the combination code. What's what, you know, we turn it to the three, then we go to the seven, then we go to the two. Like it's like you're figuring your energy management combination code. as relates to these different buckets. And then once you figure out that little code, then it's a matter of kind of rinse and repeat, you know, until it changes. Yeah, I love that. Yeah.

So talk a little bit about you are leading female entrepreneurs through these systems and how to create insane work-life balance. So talk a little bit about that. I know that is on your heart and something really cool that I haven't seen anybody do for female entrepreneurs. Oh, thanks, Mindy. Well, you know, as you know, because, you know, we work together on the business. So you have experienced what this feels like to help clarify that vision and then create a business model with the systems to help drive that. And one of

things that I found as a woman entrepreneur is that I love being an entrepreneur, but it's lonely. And I was so almost embarrassed. It's so lonely. And I remember thinking it feels really alone about it. But I'm like, who do I talk to? How do I talk to about this? And this is probably about maybe five or seven years ago and so I started looking for groups and I couldn't find one that I really kind of connected with. And so I thought, well, you know what? I don't see it. So I'm just going to create it. And created a woman entrepreneur mastermind with a vision with a couple of things. Number one, women, we just do better in community. We do much better if we have other people in the top one and two tiers that, right, that we're in alignment with our vision. Like, yeah, we want to build

these great businesses, but we want a life and we want balance and we want to be a great spouse. We don't have to, we want to, we don't want to sacrifice one for the other. And so to be with other like-minded women that have that same Valley system, that was kind of, I would say, the first big thing. But then the second big thing is really helping women learn a system both on their business and their personal life, because these two systems have to be in alignment. Okay. So you've got these two systems teaching women the system, the vision for your business, and what are the systems you have to have in place to kind of accelerate? And what is this? system you need on your personal life in terms of the goals that you actually have on the personal

side and that is where the time management piece comes in and really teaching women these two systems so that you can actually have success in both parts of your life but it takes so beautiful yeah it is so good well you know mindy i just love it and i just found i was doing a lot of working with businesses or i'd be working with people individually on the family side and i just wanted to create a framework where let me teach it in a way that is affordable for people because otherwise is it's like, okay, well, where do I don't know how to go. It's going to be super expensive. And so the idea is like, how can I create it so that it's affordable that this is an investment

into myself? And so, it's just been so, it's been just amazing. And I've loved it. And I've just loved watching. And you know, the thing that I have loved as we launched it this last year, I had a woman. I knew when I knew something was working when one of our, one of the women, she said to me, she runs a very big company, edge, a thousand employees. And she said to me, Karen, after I started applying your tools and your systems,

She goes for the first time of my life, in my business life, I actually started, I started to not work at night because I teach women about time. Yes. And I'm like, so now the husband is now getting a little bit of attention. Now she's actually reading a book, you know, something that she hasn't done for a while. And so all of a sudden, but she's got her system to kind of help her achieve that vision. So it does, it is possible, but we have to be really strategic about it. And then, of course, doing it with other people is just amazing. Yeah. I love it. Well, we'll put. all the links and leave it all up. So if people are, if they're interested, they can join your mastermind for women, female entrepreneurs. Before we leave, I have to ask you the last question that I've been asking everybody this year, which is, what's your definition of health?

And how do you know when you're healthy? Oh, that's a good question. What's my definition of health? My definition of health. I would actually say energize, Mindy. I mean, maybe it's just kind of based on this cool conversation, but I know I'm healthy. when I'm emotionally, physically, and spiritually energized. And so that to me, it's almost like my, it's the fruit of the labor. If I can kind of get my ducks in a row and kind of apply these systems, then I'm going to get help, that I'm going to be emotionally, physical, and spiritually. Aligned and energized is how I would describe it.

That's a good question. Mindy, you asked like the best questions. So good. Well, it's because I have a very curious brain. Yeah. It's always just trying to, yeah. Well, it's interesting because. before this podcast, I was actually feeling very tired. And this is a great example. And actually,

to be quite honest, I even had a little nap. And I never nap in the afternoon. But I feel like my, I feel like that my body might be fighting something off a little bit. So I had a little bit of a nap. But the second that we started talking, it's like the energy, you know, the energy kind of comes in. And now I feel totally energized because, you know, I just love, I love chatting with you. And you ask the most amazing questions. I love this topic. I love the fact that people are listening. Hopefully people listening be like, oh, I can do this. Like there's some nuggets here in terms of applications. So thank you.

Agreed. Well, yeah. No, I mean, I really, this is an eternal question. I'm trying to solve for myself and solve for women. And I think we got a really good stab at it today. And I just adore you. And I'm energized whenever I get around you. So thank you, friend, for all the amazing work you're doing in the world.

And most of all, thank you for being my friend. Oh, thanks, Wendy. lifting me up. So I appreciate you so much. Well, it is totally mutual. And I just think the world of you. And I, there is, you know, I just, one of the things I actually also love about you, and this is for everybody listening, people will say to me, is Mindy, you know, who you see on the podcast. Is that really who she is? Yes. And like, there's no disconnect of like, you know, who you are on stage versus, like, there's such an alignment. And I just absolutely love you and your energy that you bring to the world. And so thank you. Thank you for this. This is such a gift.

Yeah, I love this. So, okay, love you. Until we do this again. But we'll be, we will have other ways to connect. So I appreciate you. Awesome. Thanks, Mindy. Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode.

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