We’re back from our summer hiatus that lasted longer than planned because life happens.

Listen to this conversation to hear us catch up on how our time off was, including discussions about:

• Being present while traveling with loved ones
• How quickly (or not) change actually happens
• Working with low energy seasons
• Planning around your business’s cycles
• Pam’s surprising anxiety trigger
• Sarah’s tips for hiring

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Transcript

This transcript was generated by AI so please ignore any weird errors. If there is anything really terrible, let us know.

Pam (00:00)
So we’re back. We took the summer off from recording and Sarah, you had a lot of travel and a lot of things going on. And I was really glad to take the time off because I was just kind of low energy and really didn’t want to do any more than I needed to.

So we’re gonna catch up today and talk about everything that we did or didn’t do throughout the summer, lessons that we learned, some lessons I relearned, experiences we had, and just things that we can share that will hopefully be valuable for our listeners.

Sarah Lang (00:31)
Fabulous and yeah great to be back. I so enjoyed the hiatus the break Over the summer I did do a lot of traveling and I also had a lot of downtime in my business So I really enjoyed that and now here we are in the fall everything’s picking up again, and I’m gonna be glad to have these touch points with you throughout. So excited to reconnect today

Pam (00:57)
Awesome. Well, before we dive into our summers, do you mind if I start with how my morning today has gone so far?

Sarah Lang (01:04)
Mmm, please do.

Pam (01:07)
So I am meticulous with my calendar. I’m five minutes early to every meeting. I never double book anything. That’s just one of my things. My calendar is set. But this morning, my day was a little bit more hectic than usual. We are dog sitting for my in-laws. So we have two small dogs here, which kind of disrupts the schedule. Love them, but you you gotta take them out for walks and feed them and you know, they just add a layer of complexity.

Sarah Lang (01:17)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, their work. Dogs are cute and their work. It’s a yes and.

Pam (01:37)
They need lot of attention, they are work. Exactly, yes, exactly. We also have some construction going on in our house. We were recording today for the first time in months, which added a little bit of complexity to my day and I had a couple of other things going on. And I was about to get in the shower.

when I looked down at my phone and I saw an alert from Google Meet that says, like, join your meeting, people are waiting. I was like, what are you talking about? Like, what is this? At which point I realized that I was 15 minutes late for a meeting with a client. And I, you know, I have no clothes on. I am getting in the shower as I see this. So I panic and like throw clothes on and run down to my computer and see if they’re still in the meeting and they’re not.

Sarah Lang (02:22)
Yeah.

Pam (02:30)
And so I send them an email that just says, look, I’m really sorry. You know, I didn’t see the alert on my calendar. Can we reschedule? You know, I apologize for wasting their time. And it was this awesome opportunity for me to see how far I’ve come with my perfectionism and my anxiety because missing a meeting, especially with a client that I have had for a couple of years that I care a lot about that

Sarah Lang (02:51)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Pam (02:59)
would have sent me into a spiral of you screwed up, they’re gonna fire you, how could you do this? I mean, it just would have been terrible inside my head, missing a meeting like that before. But I was able to just go, know, things happen, I’m sorry, I screwed up, can we reschedule? Sent the email and I was able to recover from it very quickly because of the years of work that I’ve.

Sarah Lang (03:11)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Pam (03:29)
done on this. And I was so grateful for that, for that ability to recover quickly because of the mindfulness practices that I have had and the work on perfectionism and being able to say, I made a mistake, and that’s okay.

Sarah Lang (03:40)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, I love it. I love it. And it’s so true. Things like that can be so blown out of proportion in our brains and we can really berate ourselves and punish ourselves. So congratulations on missing a meeting and then forgiving yourself quickly.

Pam (03:59)
Yeah. Thank you. Well, and you know, would have been a situation where I was anxious and anxious and, you know worried about it until I got a response from them. And I got a response from the two people that would have been in the meeting. One said, no worries, we’ll meet next month. And the other one said, stuff happens. Like they didn’t even care about rescheduling. They didn’t care that I missed… And it’s like, I’m so grateful that I have such wonderful clients, but also I’m I’m so grateful that I

Sarah Lang (04:10)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Pam (04:28)
didn’t beat myself up for 45 minutes. So for anyone out there who is going through that kind of thing, who does have that, you where you send a mistake in an email or miss a meeting or something like that, you can get over that kind of stuff. You can learn to recover more quickly. And it does take a lot of practice with mindfulness and a lot of like work on recognizing that mistakes happen and that it’s okay. And you’re human.

Sarah Lang (04:50)
Mm-hmm.

Pam (04:58)
We’re all human, we all make mistakes and to just give yourself a little bit of grace and not let something silly like that ruin your entire day.

Sarah Lang (05:08)
Yeah, thanks for sharing that. I, it’s so interesting because I think, you know, you describe a tendency that you see in yourself around perfectionism and I relate, but mine is more like my sort of pattern that in that realm that I have is more around the people pleasing part and not wanting to ever sort of change plans or cancel plans or inconvenience someone in that way. Like I have a history of that and I’ll get really, really

Stressed looking at a calendar and realizing I double booked even if I have you know two weeks before to say hey Can we you know change the state or I won’t be able to make it. I’ll feel this sort of angst around making that call When in reality as soon as I do it the person’s like, yeah, okay Right. so that that’s been my my journey and and like you I’ve gotten a lot better at it and it’s so freeing

Pam (05:51)
Yeah.

Yeah.

It is. It’s interesting that you associate that with people pleasing. I hadn’t considered that because I have the same thing. If I have to reschedule a meeting, I don’t like doing that. I don’t like inconveniencing people, but I had never considered it being people pleasing. That’s a really interesting frame.

Sarah Lang (06:16)
Yeah.

Anyways, we both made it today. We’re here. Low stress. Yeah.

Pam (06:30)
Yes, we’re here with low stress. Great. All right. So what do you want to start with from your summer?

Sarah Lang (06:41)
Well, you mentioned the travel piece. So, yeah, I guess we have a lot to catch up on. I’ve taken three trips since we last met and they were all delightful and nourishing. Two of the trips were with my family. And then one was for my own development with a group of sort of friends slash colleagues.

Pam (06:43)
Yeah.

Sarah Lang (07:04)
So we took two trips in the summer. One was to Europe and the second was driving out east on a road trip to go see my dad who lives on the east coast of Canada. And they were both fabulous. Really great. And in terms of something that I did differently for these trips, a couple of things, but a key thing is I did all of my work before I left.

Pam (07:32)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Lang (07:33)
And so I wasn’t stretched. I didn’t feel like I had one foot in work and responsibilities and one foot with my family. thought we worked so hard to make these trips happen, to organize them, plan them, pay for them. You know, it’s a huge, huge thing to do and I’m going to enjoy them and be fully present. And so I truly had me out of office on, you know, maybe I responded to a couple of inquiries that came in just for business development for the future.

But I didn’t, I didn’t even bring my laptop with me. Right. So I was really present and really in the flow with my family. Like we ended up going to places that sort of emerged, like opportunities came up or invitations came up. So we were very much in the flow and just creating kind of with each other and in the moment and with opportunities versus kind of following a bucket list or somebody else’s.

Pam (08:07)
Wow.

Sarah Lang (08:33)
list of ideas we ended up really just going to the beat of our own drum and that felt really that felt really great. So it was yeah, it was a great trip. in Europe we visited Slovenia and we visited Prague and Germany and Well, you know this but I will confess the reason we went to Germany was that I took my daughter to Taylor Swift

Pam (08:59)
you

Sarah Lang (09:02)
in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, which is like this kind of town in the middle of nowhere. Even my German friends were like, yeah, you might not want to spend all your additional time right in that town. You’ll probably want to spend some time outside of it. So we visited Cologne and Dusseldorf, but we had so much fun seeing her there because it’s impossible to get tickets in Toronto or in Canada. We had so much fun.

And that’s an example of, we spent an extra week in Germany just to do that. And it felt like. Just really, I was just felt so fortunate that I had sort of the ability to take that week and treat my daughter to that experience and that she still wanted to hang out with me. And we took the train together and stayed just the two of us. So that was, that was a really unique portion, but I would say the whole, both trips were really.

Pam (09:47)
you

Sarah Lang (09:58)
framed by this being in the moment and creating with my family and letting go of kind of previous plans, previous checklists and just kind of enjoying it. And I really did feel a lot of joy.

Pam (10:13)
That’s great. And I love that you were able to do that, to like not work and to not have that split, you know, I’m half on vacation, half working feeling because I’ve done that, you know, plenty of times. It’s one of those things when you work for yourself, you know, you don’t get vacation and you know, even people who have, you know, vacation days, there’s still this pressure to work no matter what and…

Sarah Lang (10:25)
I’ve done it so many times.

Mm-hmm.

Pam (10:40)
I did the same thing over a birthday weekend trip that I took. met my mom in Denver. It’s an annual trip that we do every year. And I didn’t take my laptop. I was traveling on, I think I traveled on Saturday and back on Tuesday. So there was like two work days in there where normally I would have been at least, you know, checking in regularly or like, or at least had a lot of anxiety about what I wasn’t doing and what I might be missing. And I didn’t.

Sarah Lang (11:00)
Yeah.

Pam (11:09)
I left my laptop at home. did check email, you know, maybe once a day on my phone, but I just did as much as I could before I left and cleared my schedule and was able to just enjoy it. And like you said, be present and not have that anxiety.

Sarah Lang (11:23)
Yeah, yeah, and that’s that’s very new for you too. Yeah.

Pam (11:27)
Huge, yeah, very new. I have this, like, I can still feel the anxiety of a trip that we took one year to Chicago for CK’s birthday. I was so anxious. It was like at the height of my email anxiety and I, you know, it was December, so it’s the crazy time of year for e-commerce and marketing. And so I felt like I couldn’t take this time off. And I was…

anxious the entire trip because it’s like either I was working and then worried about like ignoring CK and not doing what we’re supposed to be doing on the trip or when we were out then it was like what am I missing at work and it was just this horrible feeling the entire time and I never wanted to do that again and I’m happy to say that this trip was successful and I was able to do it you know and that’s it’s not just a switch that you flip and all of a sudden you can like obviously you know we’re

Sarah Lang (11:57)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And it’s not just a mindset piece too. I mean, we need to mention that part of it is practical. Sometimes you can’t, you can’t, you know, take that vacation or you can’t take the time off. or you have, you know, certain deliverables. So there, you know, there is that piece and that, you know, I want, I’d love to talk about this later, but around the cycles and the business,

Pam (12:24)
Yeah.

Sarah Lang (12:47)
the seasons for me as a business owner, what I realized is my summer is really low key. I have very, very little work. I taught two classes at the university, but that was once per week, a couple of one-on-one clients. And I think that’s it. I mean, was really, really empty. And I love that because…

As you know, I was working in my garden, hanging out with my kids, taking these holidays, kind of planning for the year, getting things organized, and just relaxing. So I could certainly fill the time with pleasure. Now that we are in October, my calendar is really, really full. And I…

And I love the work. It’s great work. And I’m not going to say no to any of it. And that includes teaching on Saturdays. And I’ve even gotten some opportunities on Sundays. Like my October and November is just completely rammed. And I think it wouldn’t be a sustainable schedule long term. But I am viewing it now. I’m taking like a bigger picture view of this is what my this is what my year looks like. Like now that I’ve been, you know, four or five years really into my business.

I can see what the seasons are like and so I can make sense of this busy time and appreciate it and build in structures to enjoy it knowing that, okay, I will have this winter break, you know, a spring break, but then a really, really nice downtime in the summer. So I’ve been thinking about that a lot, the cycles.

Pam (14:28)
Yeah, well, let’s talk about that some more, because it was something that I was also thinking about as we went through the summer. And I was very low energy this summer. Like I just, I didn’t want to work. I didn’t want to take on anything extra. Like I kind of did the bare minimum, you know? Spent a lot of time reading and relaxing and honestly just doing nothing. And that’s not a luxury that I would have given myself in previous years. I would have felt like,

Sarah Lang (14:38)
Yeah.

Mm.

Pam (14:57)
I still had to sit at my computer and find things to do. Like I wouldn’t have given myself the freedom to go and sit on the couch and read a book. And I started thinking about how, you know, there are like seasons to your business and to your energy level and to everything. And we have, you know, I think this inherent…

Sarah Lang (15:16)
Mm-hmm.

Pam (15:23)
desire to constantly be filling our time with something. And it’s like, if my business is a little bit slower right now, that must mean that things are bad and I gotta find more clients and I gotta hustle and I gotta, you and you start to like think that you have to do more and more and more instead of maybe taking that longer view like you did of your year and understanding like, yeah, it’s a little bit slower right now, but it’s gonna get busier. So I need to take advantage of this downtime and recharge.

Sarah Lang (15:36)
Mm-hmm.

Pam (15:53)
and be able to go into that busy time with, you know, with a rested body and mind so that I can have this packed calendar and not be overloaded. You know, if you hadn’t taken the time off during the summer, going from busy to busier could be a disaster. No.

Sarah Lang (15:53)
Yeah.

Yeah, it’s not sustainable. And when you’re saying that, I’m thinking of the fact that in order to have this sort of like bird’s eye perspective of the year, of the cycles, I really need to have that mindful awareness, right? It’s the ability to step out of the autopilot and see something, look for bigger patterns.

like connect bigger dots about your life instead of being completely consumed by what’s happening in the here and now.

Pam (16:46)
Yeah, understanding that everything changes because I think that we do get into this idea or I do. It’s like, what’s happening now is what’s gonna happen forever. Like, I’m never gonna get busy again or I’m never gonna have another client come in or whatever that is. And for me to be able to take that bird’s eye view, I realized that in previous years, because I would…

Sarah Lang (16:58)
Yeah.

Pam (17:13)
continue to push even through the summer when it’s slower and I would stress myself out. By the time I got to my birthday in September, I was exhausted and I didn’t want to celebrate. Friends would ask to go out to dinner and I’d be like, ugh. I hated that time of year because people wanted to see me. I was exhausted and I didn’t want to do anything.

Sarah Lang (17:27)
Yeah.

Pam (17:35)
And this year, because I was, you know, I took that time off during the summer and I was really chill. By the time my birthday started to come around, I was reaching out to people and I was like, hey, do you want to get together? Very much, very much. And I, you know, I wasn’t exhausted and I wasn’t like wanting to hibernate for the fall, which I usually do. So, and it’s not that I missed anything in the summer or that I didn’t do anything that I should have. just.

Sarah Lang (17:44)
flipping the switch.

Pam (18:02)
went with the flow of what was happening at that point and allowed myself to have that downtime and to not panic about, know, is my energy level ever going to return to normal? Am I ever going to feel like I normally do?

Sarah Lang (18:12)
Yeah.

Yeah, cool. So what’s the lesson in here?

Pam (18:22)
I mean the lesson for me was, I mean there was a few, like one that it’s okay to take time off and to relax, that what’s happening now is not what’s going to happen forever. Things change. That you need to know what your year looks like and what your energy levels look like and what your, if you’re a business owner, what that looks like or even if you’re an employee, what the flow looks like at your job and

to be able to have that, like you said, mindfulness to just step back and say, is this the time of the year when I can take my foot off the gas? And if it is, can I give myself that freedom?

Sarah Lang (19:05)
I it. I love the idea of thinking about planning, planning in terms of energy and then planning in terms of like thinking of a whole year cycle and see and also this idea of collecting data about yourself. Right. And it’s going to be so specific to to any every listener. You and I both have our own businesses. You’ve had yours for more years than I have.

Pam (19:19)
Yeah.

Sarah Lang (19:34)
So you have a lot of data and, now I have been, I’ve been doing it for long enough that I have some data about what my life looks like now, what my business cycles look like now, what I need. And, and then using that to come up with like a loose framework around how you want to use your energy at different parts of the year.

Pam (19:55)
Yeah, it’s good.

One of the things that I did learn and that was helpful for me during that period as well, kind of shifting gears a little bit, I felt like, like I said, I just didn’t want to do much. Like if I were to describe it to someone, it would almost sound like depression, but it wasn’t, I was perfectly happy. It was just that I like didn’t have the drive that I normally have. Like if I thought about…

Sarah Lang (20:07)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Pam (20:27)
a side project or something like that. was like, no, I don’t even want to think about working on that. Like, I just didn’t want to do anything. And I learned that creatine, the supplement that you like hear about bodybuilders taking it for like muscle growth, it’s actually has it has a lot of benefits for brain health and for just like, like

thought, as I’m saying, it has a lot of benefits for brain health, and I literally can’t get words out. Anyway, it has a lot of benefits for brain health. And it’s like the cheapest supplement that you can buy. You take like 10 grams a day, just mix it with water or in a shake or something like that. And it has, it’s like the most researched supplement on the planet. And it’s really, really beneficial for, for like, just feeling like your brain is working a little bit better.

And so I started taking that both for the brain health and also for some physical goals that I have. But I do think that it was really beneficial. Like it helped me feel a little more mentally energetic when I started taking it. So people can experiment with that if they’re feeling a little sluggish.

Sarah Lang (21:41)
Okay, so confession, you just said it’s the most researched supplement and I’ve never heard of it. So, can you say what it’s called again? Creatine.

Pam (21:46)
Yeah. Yeah, it’s creatine, C-R-E-A-T-I-N-E. And it’s ridiculously cheap. You can just buy like it in bulk on Amazon and take 10 grams a day.

Sarah Lang (22:02)
Great, so you found an impact, a positive impact when you started taking it.

Pam (22:04)
I did. Yes, I did. felt like my brain woke up a little bit after I started taking it. And I was back to thinking, I’ve got these side projects that I’ve been thinking about. I want to work on those again.

Sarah Lang (22:18)
Great, thanks for the tip. I’m gonna check it out.

Pam (22:20)
All right. Another thing that I had to rediscover was at the beginning of the summer, I started having email anxiety again and work anxiety like before my energy slump like when I was still kind of working a lot, I started getting into these old patterns again. And I was like, you know, panic checking my email and

Sarah Lang (22:27)
Mm.

Mm.

Pam (22:50)
you know, going through those same things I’ve talked about many times before of, you know, worrying about what I’m missing and what I’m not doing. And I was like, what is going on? Like, why is this coming back now? Like, haven’t we dealt with this? And, you know, I know that things come up again and again that you have that you think that you have dealt with. But I was just like, I have this anxiety and I don’t know where it’s coming from. Like nothing has changed in my life.

And then I realized, I got really into Arnold Palmer’s over the summer, like the half tea, half lemonade drink. And I realized that I had been making the tea at like six times the strength. Just like, like I got these giant tea bags and just was like throwing a ton of them into the jar when I was making them. So I was drinking so much caffeine and I never drink caffeine anymore.

Sarah Lang (23:40)
Yeah.

Pam (23:46)
So just drinking this tea throughout the day, I was taking in way more caffeine than I’m used to. So I stopped doing that. I got decaf tea and the anxiety went away in two days. Yeah, it was like completely gone. I wasn’t doing the email checking behavior. I wasn’t going into these like anxiety loops. It was 100 % caffeine.

Sarah Lang (23:59)
Really?

Wow, so caffeine is a big trigger for you for anxiety.

Pam (24:18)
It is, it absolutely is for me. And I think that it probably is for a lot of people and they don’t realize it. So something to experiment with if you are…

Sarah Lang (24:24)
Yeah.

Well, I’m not experimenting with that one. I’ll get the creatine, but I’m not experimenting with that one. I draw the line.

Pam (24:34)
Well, if you don’t have the… Yeah, that’s and that’s fair if you don’t have an issue with it. You know, a lot of people do great with caffeine. I and I, I, I don’t know if I used to do great with with caffeine or I just didn’t realize that I didn’t do great with it because I used to drink a ton of coffee. And yeah, I apparently just can’t handle it. So if, you know, if anybody is listening is like dealing with anxiety, maybe try.

Sarah Lang (24:41)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Pam (25:02)
weaning off of caffeine and see if it has an impact.

Sarah Lang (25:05)
see if it has an impact. Well, I like how quickly it impacted you just within a couple of days.

Pam (25:09)
Yeah.

Sarah Lang (25:12)
Wow. Okay, so it sounds like you had quite a positive summer, like a restorative summer.

Pam (25:12)
So.

Yeah, it was. And I think if you had asked me in the moment, I wouldn’t have said that it was, because it did feel really low energy. And so it didn’t necessarily feel great being in it, because I had to get used to that feeling. That’s not me. I’m an annoyingly productive person. So to not be feeling that productive at the time, I think I would have just said I was kind of in.

Sarah Lang (25:41)
Yeah.

Mm.

Pam (25:48)
like a little bit of a slump or something, but like in hindsight now, it actually was great. And I’m really glad that I had that downtime and let myself chill.

Sarah Lang (25:50)
Yeah.

Beautiful, hindsight is 20-20.

Pam (26:01)
Yeah.

So do you want to talk about your work trip that you took?

Sarah Lang (26:09)
Yeah. So that’s my third trip. So I did my two trips in the summer with my family and then actually just on Saturday. So today’s Wednesday. So it’s been only three days on Saturday. I returned. I was in Italy for nine days and it was a leadership retreat that I co-organized with three fellow. Actually there were four and then, and then one had to step away for family reasons. So for them three other,

leadership coaches that I’ve had the pleasure of doing a lot of training with. We’ve done work together in Spain and we’ve done work together in Morocco and then we organized this trip. So four of us co-organized it, co-created it and then we had 12 in total attend. And it was amazing. And I’ll admit before I left, I started having

doubts. Should I really be going away? I went away twice in the summer. This feels a little bit extra. I have so much going on at home. Who do I think I am? And then Air Canada, I was flying on Air Canada and then there was all this talk of Air Canada was getting, you know, threatening to strike and it was all over the news. I’m like, that’s a sign, right? That it’s a sign that that I that I shouldn’t take another trip. And and then the strike was resolved. I’m like, OK. I guess.

I guess the universe is fine if I go. And I went and it was just a wonderful experience. It was great because we were able to really use a lot of the skills in co-creation and co-facilitation that we learned. Like that was part of our training. We were able to use those in real time and just have a really great, great experience. There was learning, there was…

A lot of deep conversations, was adventure, there was fun. I mean, I was in Puglia in Italy, so it was absolutely beautiful. And just a reminder about investing in relationships, like the relationships where you feel that, like where I feel that I can be myself, where I feel that I’m being challenged, but in a loving way and where I can do the same for others.

And that takes effort, right? Even I know this. This was my sixth time meeting with this group. And I know how nourishing and important it is for me personally and professionally because I bring all of that to my workplace. I bring it to my clients. I bring it to the classroom. So I know the value. And yet before I left, even I experienced all this resistance.

Pam (28:40)
Yeah.

Sarah Lang (29:04)
Who do I think I am? And this is so extra. And, you know, I look at the Air Canada strike as evidence, right? So I guess and then and then it was so worth it was so worth it. I went. Yeah, I came back. had jet lag. It was a bit of a mad rush. It’s extra effort for everyone in my family. And it’s worth it. So, yeah, it was it was great. It was it was really wonderful. And I was really glad that I

helped make it happen and that I went to attend when I created.

Pam (29:39)
Awesome. So are these workshops that you’ll be doing again in the future that people could sign up to attend?

Sarah Lang (29:47)
Not yet. Right now it’s our group. So we’ve, you know, sort of discussed different ideas, but for now these are our retreats. Though I will say I do love the idea of organizing retreats because I love workshops. I love gathering people and I love traveling. So, you know, anyone listening who’s organizing an amazing retreat, let me know.

Pam (29:50)
Okay.

Got it.

Okay, very cool.

Sarah Lang (30:18)
Yeah.

Pam (30:21)
So do we want to talk about things that we said we were going to try and work on when we recorded last or earlier this year and give some updates on those?

Sarah Lang (30:34)
Yeah, yeah, you start. Tell me what you said you were going to work on and what you’ve been working on.

Pam (30:40)
Okay, so we touched on my email anxiety. When we started the notes for this episode, I was still in that. And so I was like, I need to work on this again. And I think I dealt with that with the caffeine. But one of the other things that I said that I was working on was being better in conversation, like

Sarah Lang (30:50)
Mm-hmm.

Pam (31:04)
if I’m talking, asking the other person more questions and inviting them to participate because I realized that in my family, when we have a conversation, everyone just talks. You don’t have to ask someone for their opinion, we give it. And other people aren’t necessarily like that, they need to be asked to join a conversation. So I have been working on that.

Sarah Lang (31:16)
Mm-hmm.

Pam (31:32)
maybe 25 % better than I was before. I would say I haven’t socialized a lot over the past few months. So I haven’t had a ton of opportunities, but I had lunch where I introduced two friends of mine, because I think they will get along and have a lot in common. And I tried to practice at that brunch and ask them questions and try and not dominate the conversation. So I’m still working on it, but I think I’m getting a little bit better.

Sarah Lang (32:01)
That’s so good. And so what do you think was like the impact of that on the overall flow of the conversation at Brunch?

Pam (32:10)
I think that it made everyone else feel more comfortable and more like they were contributing more. Like I have a tendency… I’m kind of an entertainer. Like if you put me in a room, you know, give me an audience I will put on a show. Yes, exactly. I’m very comfortable in that role. So it’s

Sarah Lang (32:30)
Let the stories begin.

Pam (32:39)
But at the same time, like I love hearing other people’s stories. I love learning about other people. So I think it’s actually when I, maybe when I’m not as comfortable, I go into the entertainer role. So I’m learning to become more comfortable being quiet and not filling the space with my own words. So I think that it makes other people feel more appreciated and more, you know, engaged.

Sarah Lang (32:44)
Yeah.

Yeah, like my assumption would be that it’s a pretty easy flex for you because the way I know you, I mean, I was surprised when you said that was something that you wanted to work on because I know you as someone who’s so good. Yes, of course you’re a good storyteller and you can do that, but I know you as somebody who’s so interested and good at asking questions. So I guess it’s what you’re saying. Like the range is there and you’re noticing sometimes you veer towards one way and another time towards another.

Pam (33:37)
Yeah, it’s definitely situational. Like with my in-laws, I’m so interested in their story and learning about them that I will just ask them questions for hours and not tell them anything. But if I’m in a situation where I don’t feel comfortable necessarily, or I feel like the other people are not comfortable and they’re not gonna step up and tell stories, then I will just dominate the conversation.

Sarah Lang (34:03)
Yeah, I get that. Cool. Good for you. Okay. So what did I say? I said I was going to work on asking for help. and I’ve done that. So I hired a couple of people over the summer. I hired a new coach who I’m working with, for a variety of things. some elements of my business and then a lot of personal.

Pam (34:13)
Yeah.

Sarah Lang (34:33)
personal growth type work and she’s a total pro and she’s amazing. Yeah, so she’s been great and we’re just beginning the journey. And then I also hired someone who was helping me with some of the back end portion of my business. So setting up some systems for my regular emails because I need help with that and a new sort of CRM system.

Pam (34:39)
That’s great.

Sarah Lang (35:02)
for like managing clients and managing the sessions that they purchase. It’s the kind of thing that, you know, apparently it’s really easy to set these up. Yet if left to me, it would take me three years to do it, which we have evidence of. So I realized, I need somebody who can come in and be a thought partner with me. So more than an assistant, I need somebody who has expertise, who has

ideas about you should do it this way or that way, or this isn’t a good program for you. Because also as a, as a business owner, as you know, there’s a bazillion, bazillions and gazillions of products out there. I’m feeling like I’m always being sold to or tried to be sold to like this kind of program, this kind of thing you need, this is going to upgrade your business. And quite frankly, I don’t need a lot of that stuff. So we, but

but they can be such powerful sales pitches. And if, and sometimes I’m feeling, this part isn’t organized and I really want it to be organized. And then they’re promising, you know, this ad is promising. You’re going to feel so organized and calm. And it’s like, actually no, because it’s more than I need. It’s more expensive than I need. It takes so long to set it up. And it’s just not really meeting my meeting, meeting my roof, my personal requirements for my business. So I needed somebody who could

help me sort through, wade through all of that and come up with the simplest ways to run my business. So she’s really helped with that and we’re still setting a few things up, but being able to outsource that thinking and the decision, not outsource the decision making, but outsource the first step of the decision making so someone can come back and be like, okay, here are two great options for you and here’s why was precisely what I needed.

Pam (36:54)
And the thing with all of those tools, they tell you, this is gonna solve all your problems, but at the end of the day, you still have to do it, right? You still have to put the plan in process, you still have to do whatever needs to be done in the tool. And so being able to know yourself and know where your strengths are and where your time should be, and then to find someone who will work the tool is so valuable.

Sarah Lang (37:03)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, totally. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s so important what you’re saying about know yourself, because one thing about myself is I don’t, I don’t enjoy learning a new tool. I really don’t. I feel resistance. It makes me feel like, go on YouTube and look up how to use this feature. I feel angry. Like, I have, like, I feel like I’m wasting my life when I have to learn how to use technology. which isn’t a great,

Pam (37:45)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Lang (37:48)
quality because of mine because you know sometimes these tools can be advantageous and I don’t want to not know how to do things right but when it’s like these little finicky things that’s gonna take me two hours to learn how to change one feature it’s just

Pam (37:57)
Yeah.

Yeah. And it could be something where you spend all this time learning how to use it and it ends up not being the solution to your problem and then you really did waste all that time. Yeah.

Sarah Lang (38:15)
Exactly, exactly. So we’re still putting these into place, but maybe once it’s all organized, we can do a session on like what we can talk about, like the various tools that we each use and why.

Pam (38:25)
Yeah, that would be great. Do you have any tips for hiring people like that? Because that’s something I’ve always struggled with. I’ve never been able to have an assistant or anyone because I’m not good at delegating, I’m not good at managing. But I also think that trying to hire someone is the hardest thing in the world. Like trying to find someone with the skill set that you want, that you’re gonna get along with and then…

Sarah Lang (38:35)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Pam (38:54)
you know, like, do you have any tips for how you found good people?

Sarah Lang (38:57)
Yeah, it’s, mean, I’m certainly not a pro at hiring, but I have learned the hard way when I’ve wasted, you know, I’ve wasted resources hiring the wrong people, right? So I would say number one is, is trust. So getting like solid referrals from other people more than one person, but people that you

that you trust that this individual can actually get the work done and that they’re, they have integrity and they’re a trustworthy person. So that’s the first is like referrals. And then secondly, you brought this up and I think it’s so important. It’s to know yourself and know specifically what you need. And I’ll give you an example of that. In the past, I’ve hired assistants and they’ve been, they’ve come to me and said, okay, well, what do you need me to do?

which is completely fair. That is what they should be doing. And I realized, I don’t, I don’t know. Like I want, like, kind of know, but I also want you to help me figure out what this plan can look like. Right. I want more of a co-creative kind of a relationship because it’s like you, this is just me and my business. I’m solo and I’ve managed to figure a lot of things out.

Pam (40:07)
Yeah.

Sarah Lang (40:21)
But I realized when I’m bringing somebody on, I want them to be able to meet me with their expertise, challenge some of my ideas, make some offers, and then we come up with a plan and then, you know, they can go and execute on their behalf. But that’s me. Other people might have a really clear idea. They’re super, you know, already organized and they know what it is. And in that case, great. Then you can have somebody who you’re, you know, delegating specific tasks to. So that’s kind of knowing yourself. So the first is,

is getting referrals from people you trust. The second is knowing yourself and what works for you. And then I would say the third is being very crystal clear about what your business actually needs. And marketing, all the marketing out there, no disrespect, will tell you that you need everything, but you need to know what you actually need and what you don’t need.

So finally, I feel that I’m at a place in my business that I was able to identify three specific gaps in my business. And this person could help me fill it. And I don’t have other things that I need done. Like, it’s just not necessary that these were three specific things. And that came with time. So those would be my three tips. What do you think? What would you add or change?

Pam (41:42)
I those are great tips. Like I said, I have not had a good track record with trying to hire people, so I don’t think that I have anything to add, but that was really helpful. I think the clarity of knowing what you need and being able to communicate that while also saying, here are the areas where I need your help, but I also need you to come to me with ideas. I think that’s really a big, big tip.

Sarah Lang (41:56)
Yeah.

Pam (42:09)
because a lot of people will, think I would feel like I have to tell you everything that you need to do. you know, like if I’m hiring you, I have to be the boss, you know, instead of allowing it to be collaborative.

Sarah Lang (42:17)
Yeah.

Because that’s where the true benefit is, to benefit from other people’s ideas. And that’s really what I’m interested in. If I’m working with someone, I want us to share ideas because there’s just so much more richness in that versus me thinking I know the best way that everything should be done.

Pam (42:24)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sure, if you knew the best way, then you could just do it yourself.

Sarah Lang (42:43)
Exactly. Yeah, so that’s been good asking for help. And one of the big takeaways from my initial leadership training that I took was around the importance of asking for help and the fact that so many leaders and successful professionals and adults really struggle with asking for

Pam (43:05)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Lang (43:07)
So I think there’s a lot of depth to the topic to being real with yourself about what’s not working. And it can feel vulnerable to say like, I don’t know how to do this, or I need help with my bookkeeping. That’s another thing actually that’s on the list. But whatever the areas are, we’ve all got areas, right? So to be honest about those and to then seek out the best help possible that fills your specific needs. And you’re not all.

You know, no human is an island. We all need help.

Pam (43:38)
Yeah, we did an entire episode on why asking for help is so hard. And I feel like we could do another deep dive on like practically asking for help and what that looks like.

Sarah Lang (43:42)
It’s true. It’s true.

Yeah, exactly. So here I am still like you’re saying, like we keep needing to learn the same lessons over and over again. I’m like, it’s helpful to, it’s good to ask for help, but it is, it’s hard. It can be hard and tricky, but it’s worth it.

Pam (43:52)
you

Yeah. Well, that transitions to the next thing on our list, which was talking about thinking about things in different timelines. you know, asking for help is something that you have known that you needed to do for a while. And, you know, it’s a lesson that you’ve learned again and again. And that is that’s just kind of something that that happens is that we have to learn these lessons over and over again. And we also can’t rush things like change.

Sarah Lang (44:09)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Pam (44:30)
this is a lesson that I learned over and over again, the older I get, change happens when it’s meant to happen. You can set goals and you can want to change things and that’s great. You should want to improve things that you feel are holding you back. But at the same time, I kind of have had this feeling that you can try and force something to happen and it doesn’t happen until…

it’s the right time for it to happen and then it feels easier when it’s the right time. Does that make sense?

Sarah Lang (45:05)
Okay, it does. Do you have an example specifically?

Pam (45:09)
so I’m trying to like the only one that’s really coming to mind right now is my like health and fitness goals. So I have spent, you know, the last decade gaining and losing the same 20 pounds, starting a fitness routine and quitting, starting a new eating plan and quitting. And like, I was always beating myself up about how I couldn’t stick to any of these things. And I would, you know,

not be successful long term. And I was like, always unhappy with where I was because either I had given up and put all the weight back on and wasn’t working out or I was miserable because I was on some crazy calorie restricted diet or like no carbs or whatever it was. And it was, I was never happy in either situation. And then, you know, last year, I think something just clicked and I

Sarah Lang (45:57)
Yeah.

Pam (46:07)
easily built a routine where I work out every day and it’s easier for me to eat the way that I should be eating and maintain the weight that I want to be maintaining and do it without thought. It just for some reason was easy all of a sudden. And I’m going to try and think of more examples, but I feel like that has happened to me many times where it’s like I try in for something and it’s just never

Sarah Lang (46:22)
Hmm.

Mm.

Pam (46:36)
happens and then all of a sudden it does for some reason or another like the time just is right and it works.

Sarah Lang (46:42)
Yeah, but do think in this case it also has to do with the fact that you’ve tried so many ways before? So you learned about yourself.

Pam (46:48)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, great point. Yeah, absolutely. I don’t think that the trying didn’t have value. I think that the stress that I put myself through and the mental anguish of beating myself up because I wasn’t doing it was the thing that should have changed, not the trying.

Sarah Lang (47:12)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense because I’m also thinking imagining for you, you’re at a time of your life, you know, the wisdom that comes from age and from all the work that that you’ve done, incorporating mindfulness into your life, working on being more flexible and forgiving with yourself, giving yourself more spaciousness, more self love. And then that those are the conditions.

Pam (47:44)
Yeah.

Sarah Lang (47:46)
Right? And then in those conditions, now you’re treating your body lovingly and it feels maybe easier and better. And then you happen to be getting the results that make you feel good.

Pam (47:58)
Yeah, you’re right.

Sarah Lang (48:01)
Yay, 40s.

Pam (48:02)
I know, yep. I gotta grab this paper here.

Sarah Lang (48:04)
you

Pam (48:11)
One of the other things along that same vein of like that things, you know, thinking about things on a different time scale that they either happen faster or much slower than you think that they will. I was going through a closet and cleaning it out and I found a notebook with notes from a class that I took in, it must have been 2021 because it was when we were living in an Airbnb before we bought our house during the pandemic. And

Sarah Lang (48:24)
Yeah.

Pam (48:40)
In the course, we were supposed to write down our goals, our big goals, not short-term things, but things that we really, really wanted to achieve. the goals that I wrote down were to become more self-motivated, to get better at not being good at things, and to release perfectionism.

to learn to collaborate with others, to learn how to record and produce great video content, to be consistent, to accept feedback without feeling defensive. And those are things that I probably haven’t, like I haven’t looked at these goals since I wrote them down in that course. Like I took the course and then I was like, okay, magic’s gonna happen now, right? And I came across this notebook and looked at these goals and I’ve,

Sarah Lang (49:13)
Yay!

Pam (49:41)
hit most of them or you know have made significant progress in achieving them and that they were something that I wrote down four years ago.

But everything that I’ve done over the last four years has built up to this point where I can look back at those and go, I did that. If I had been, I think, overly focused on them and trying to say, at six months, have I done this? I think it would have been less of a.

Sarah Lang (50:16)
Yeah.

Yeah. Collaborate with one person within the next six months. That kind of thing.

Pam (50:24)
Right? Yes, yes. Right. But they all took time and, you know, years and it took us a while to get this show going and to get our flow and figure out how this all happens. And so I think that like my takeaway for this was that things take time and, you know, it’s really only hindsight that lets you look back and go, my gosh, look at

all of the things that I have done and the progress that I’ve made and the mental shifts that I’ve had and yeah there’s still things that I can work on but my god like over the last four years I have done almost everything on the list that I said that I wanted to do and that’s only because of time and consistency.

Sarah Lang (51:15)
Yeah, it is very much playing the long game as well. I love it. Well, celebrating you and everything you’ve achieved in four years for yourself.

Pam (51:19)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yep. So when I put this on the list, I talked about how everything takes longer than you think that it’s going to, and you came back and said longer and shorter.

Sarah Lang (51:37)
Yeah, I yes and did you yeah Because I think sometimes actually I was marveling about this with my kid was related to something with my kid recently About how much we can change in a year. So you know you’re you mentioned these four years and And I think yeah, sometimes that’s true Sometimes things take us a decade or longer right lifelong

especially like learn evolving as a person and stuff. But also I think sometimes meaningful change can happen quickly, right? So thinking about my kid, he is in baseball and his first year he just discovered baseball and absolutely fell in love with it. Just fell in love with it. And when you first start playing, you have no skill. Like you literally have no skill. So he, but passion and love. So he was in a little house league.

And then he went through the season and then you can try out for the next level. It’s called Select. And so he tried out and he was cut like immediately, you know, the first year. And then this year again, so for the second summer, he joined a house league team and then he tried out what he loved and then he tried out for Select and he made the Select team. Thank you. And I said to him, this is an amazing testament.

Pam (52:56)
Congratulations!

Sarah Lang (53:03)
to how much you can learn in one year. Because let me tell you, in that year, this child brought his baseball glove on holidays. He, with his little buddies, walks to school with the baseball gloves. They’re playing in the schoolyard. They are practicing after school, practicing on the weekends, practicing with me, practicing with dad, practicing with anyone who will practice, right? So there’s that, been that level of practice. That’s all it was.

Right? So I just thought it was amazing. I’m like, look at in one year, you went from here to there. So I love that. And then I think about other examples of what can happen in a year. My garden. I didn’t have a garden. Then suddenly last year I had kind of a rinky dink garden, but it was there after I planted things. And then this year she’s blooming. Right? So there’s an example. Or I think about my class. I just started a new round of public speaking.

Pam (53:39)
Yeah.

Sarah Lang (54:03)
class last night, which I teach. And this particular class is 11 weeks, 20 people in the class. And I said to them, my promise to you is by the end of the 11 weeks, you are each going to walk out of here more confident. If you show up, if you do the work, if you present in front of each other, if you stay present, receive feedback, learn how to give feedback, you will walk out more confident. Does that mean

you will have every skill, you’ll never get scared, you’ll know how to facilitate meetings perfectly. Of course not, you know, every circumstance is different. We all come in with our own stories and our own abilities and fears and circumstances and the way we’re treated and all kinds of things. So it’s not black and white, but if you do this for 11 weeks, you will feel more confident.

And I love that. And I love that I can say that because I know that it’s true because again, it’s just a matter of showing up and practicing. And then I recently got a message on LinkedIn from a previous student from two years ago. And she said, since your class, I started speaking up more at work and I delivered this presentation at a huge conference. And she said I was so nervous before, but I’ve been practicing the skills. she said, my boss, she’s

Pam (55:01)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Lang (55:23)
fairly young, she’s like a younger professional. She said, my boss told me I was the best speaker in our organization. Yeah. And I was just like, that’s amazing. Like she took the course two years ago. And then since then, clearly she’s gone out in the world and she’s practiced. So I love this because I’m of course in my work, meet so many people who are nervous with public speaking when it comes to that. And then I think really, if you practice,

Pam (55:30)
wow.

Sarah Lang (55:51)
you can get better. You can get better. can change your relationship with how you feel about it. You can change your nerves around it. And you can start in six weeks. I’m not promising a miracle solution. I’m just saying that if you do this for six weeks, you’re going to feel a bit better. If you do it for 12 weeks, you’re going to feel a lot better. Then if you keep doing it in your life, it’s going to get better and better.

Profound change like we change over our lifetime and also we can take these little micro things that we want to work on a new result a new skill. You know practicing a language or an instrument or whatever it is decluttering our house anything that feels like improving a relationship being better at conversation staying in touch with people

you know, doing yoga or doing something nice for our body, following, you know, cooking nice things instead of ordering out, whatever, you pick something. And if you do it for six weeks, 12 weeks, six months, a year, that part of your life can be different.

Pam (56:55)
Absolutely. I think we’re saying the same thing. I think we agree that, you know, you can make a change and see an immediate impact and the consistency over time. It’s just like compound interest, right? Start saving now and in 10 years, you’re going to have a whole bunch of money. Start making change now in a couple of years, that change is going to be dramatic.

Sarah Lang (56:57)
I think so.

Yeah.

Yes.

I love it. So more episodes to come where we can keep talking about changes big and small.

Pam (57:26)
Yep. All right. We are back and we will be publishing on our regular schedule going forward until we decide to take another break. Yep. All right. See you next time.

Sarah Lang (57:36)
Exactly. But for now, every two weeks.

Bye!