Speaker 1: It's time for the b a qa a to b
Speaker 1: a q a with Ti fine to b a q
Speaker 1: ain't no man debt b a qa a. It's time
Speaker 1: for Brown and BiH and question and answer. You have questions,
Speaker 1: I may have some answers. Now here's the thing. I'm
Speaker 1: not your attorney, not your doctor. I'm not your financial
Speaker 1: voice er you know I'm not you know, I'm your
Speaker 1: into their cousin or whatever. Just a smart black, brown
Speaker 1: girl room that can help you in the spaces of business, money,
Speaker 1: a little bit of career. That's mostly mandy though. So
Speaker 1: it means that if you need serious help, go ahead
Speaker 1: and tap those people that you pay, not us. You
Speaker 1: could just say what we say with the smaller screen
Speaker 1: in the soft aka su your grandma, not us. If
Speaker 1: you do have questions, though, you can go to Brown
Speaker 1: Ambition Podcast dot com click contact us ask there, slide
Speaker 1: into the DMS on ig Brian Ambition Podcast. Go ahead
Speaker 1: on over to the BA podcast on Twitter and tweet
Speaker 1: us or email us at Brown Ambition Podcast at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com. Okay, okay, So today's question is not directly
Speaker 1: from the mail AA. It's just something that's been coming
Speaker 1: up oh lately. The question of how do you sidestep
Speaker 1: burn out? So a lot of especially this is like
Speaker 1: from my entrepreneurs in particular, but certainly this could be
Speaker 1: for anyone. Lately, I have been hearing from a lot
Speaker 1: of my entrepreneur friends about how burnt out they are.
Speaker 1: When I tell you it is like a purveying theme.
Speaker 1: I don't actually know an entrepreneur that is not feeling exhausted,
Speaker 1: tired out, and I'm talking about the gamut. I have
Speaker 1: friends who have made fifty million dollars in the last
Speaker 1: couple of years. I'm sorry, and more. You know, I
Speaker 1: have friends who are starting out one year in business
Speaker 1: year one and you know, maybe me five thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: and the girls are tired. The girls are tired. And
Speaker 1: most recently, I saw a gentleman his name is Abu
Speaker 1: on Instagram that I follow. He is like this master
Speaker 1: like ad kind of marketing guy and he posted candidly.
Speaker 1: So That's why I'm sharing it because it's all over
Speaker 1: his social media how he is taking a break after
Speaker 1: making millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars.
Speaker 1: He is like, to what end? And I just wanted
Speaker 1: to talk through, you know, like, what is that. I
Speaker 1: think so many of us didn't grow up with the
Speaker 1: whole lot, and you know, we kind of had this
Speaker 1: idea that if we make a ton of money, it
Speaker 1: will solve so much. And certainly money does solve a
Speaker 1: lot of challenges, but not all the challenges, and sometimes
Speaker 1: money will actually create new challenges that we did not anticipate.
Speaker 1: And it can be really hard because don't nobody want
Speaker 1: to hear about a millionaire crying about in my life,
Speaker 1: So there's not a lot of safe spaces to share that,
Speaker 1: like it's too much. But I'm seeing more and more people,
Speaker 1: you know, stepping forward, whether it's publicly or just certainly
Speaker 1: behind the scenes my friends, and I'm sharing how like
Speaker 1: overworked and overwhelmed they've become. And I can say that
Speaker 1: certainly I felt like that a few years ago where
Speaker 1: I was at peak overworking war, I mean peak where
Speaker 1: like I said, I was up thirty pounds, a blood
Speaker 1: pressure was always fightd and I was like, I never
Speaker 1: had high blood pressure. And that was when I was
Speaker 1: at my peak, when my business was making eight figures
Speaker 1: of a year and I was my most stressed. I
Speaker 1: was so stressed, I felt like a balloon that had
Speaker 1: been blown to capacity, but you know, you keep blowing
Speaker 1: and you're like, is this the the Is this the
Speaker 1: gust of air that will pop it? Oh? Not yet? Okay,
Speaker 1: what about this one? Like you know you're blown the balloon?
Speaker 1: Oh wait? Is this it? Is this gonna pop the balloon?
Speaker 1: And you don't know. Day by day you're putting a
Speaker 1: little bit more air into a balloon that's already a
Speaker 1: capacity and you don't know the day that it's going
Speaker 1: to pop, but you know one day it will if
Speaker 1: you continue. And what happens is, especially as you start
Speaker 1: to get success, is that if you're not careful, you
Speaker 1: will lose control of your own life. That your business,
Speaker 1: your job, the thing that's bringing you success will start
Speaker 1: to be in charge, not you, and you will feel
Speaker 1: like you are a passenger on a runaway train, knowing
Speaker 1: that although it is garnering you money and accolades and
Speaker 1: everything else, it is also careening toward destruction. You can
Speaker 1: see it and you're like, I don't know how to
Speaker 1: get off. And if this sounds like you, you're probably
Speaker 1: nodding like yeah, see, I say I've been there or
Speaker 1: I'm there now. And it's really scary because you know,
Speaker 1: not if, but when. When Will I crash? When will
Speaker 1: this balloon pop? Will it be my health? Will I
Speaker 1: have a heart attack? Will I break down? Will I
Speaker 1: have a mental breakdown? Will I make a mistake and
Speaker 1: destroy everything? You just know when? And it is the
Speaker 1: scariest thing because you don't know what to do to
Speaker 1: stop it. And I didn't know what to do. And
Speaker 1: so about three or four years ago, I asked for
Speaker 1: help because I just was at overwork and overwhelmed to
Speaker 1: the point where I was like, I think I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have a heart attack, like on someone around this, because
Speaker 1: isn't that what high blood pressure at extended period of
Speaker 1: time will do. I wasn't sleeping, I just I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just said, I think I'm gonna have a heart
Speaker 1: attack or something. My body is going to break down.
Speaker 1: And so I started to ask for help, and I
Speaker 1: knew I needed help in two places. One in business,
Speaker 1: so I got a business coach, and then two I
Speaker 1: got a therapist. And I had a therapist in college
Speaker 1: when I was having a really hard time and so
Speaker 1: but I knew I needed something, and so the business
Speaker 1: coach helped a lot in restructuring the business, and certainly
Speaker 1: it helped. But the biggest thing I took away from
Speaker 1: the business coach is that the way I was managing
Speaker 1: the business was not sustainable. So certainly the business coach
Speaker 1: helped me to like restructure and see parts of the
Speaker 1: team and the company that need to adjust. But I
Speaker 1: realized that like, okay, that like this is great, and
Speaker 1: certainly the business is doing better and the people are
Speaker 1: on my team you know what to do, and we
Speaker 1: have a real underlying business. Like as a result of
Speaker 1: my business coach, I have a really good fundamental business
Speaker 1: like currently right now I'm talking about HR I'm talking
Speaker 1: about benefits, I'm talking about matching program for their four
Speaker 1: one K I'm talking about employee handbook, I'm talking about KPIs,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about you know what I mean like under
Speaker 1: like I'm not you know, I do not just like
Speaker 1: out here budget lisa ing or social media ing. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I have a really good, underlying, fundamental sellable business like
Speaker 1: this is a hardcore business. The business coach helped me
Speaker 1: to get there, which is great, but it also made
Speaker 1: me realize that like I could not systemize and organize
Speaker 1: my way out of what I was really feeling, which
Speaker 1: is this is still too much. And that's where the
Speaker 1: therapist came in. She had me kind of take a
Speaker 1: look at the life that I was living versus the
Speaker 1: life that I wanted to live and learning to have
Speaker 1: the courage to ask myself of that life. And it
Speaker 1: was really hard because there would have to be a
Speaker 1: lot of undoing, you know, and a lot of disappointing
Speaker 1: of people, a lot of pulling back. Everyone had expectations
Speaker 1: of me, and I had expectations of myself that I
Speaker 1: didn't want to meet anymore. But I was too scared
Speaker 1: to say. And it took really to really shake me
Speaker 1: up because I was tiptoeing towards shifting. But what really
Speaker 1: shook me up was when my husband passed away, to
Speaker 1: suddenly everything that I was slowly tiptoeing and working toward
Speaker 1: I did overnight because all the excuses I made before
Speaker 1: about why I couldn't do a thing were gone, because
Speaker 1: nothing brings more clarity like death and loss. Because I
Speaker 1: was like, wait, why am I doing this again? Like
Speaker 1: little honestly, I was anesome. I don't give a book
Speaker 1: like that's what it was. I was really on some
Speaker 1: out there's nothing I care about right now, I lost
Speaker 1: my person. Whatever y'all talking about Kick Rocks. That's how
Speaker 1: I felt everyone kick Cook Rocks, all this old timma expectation,
Speaker 1: Kick Rocks on expectation, Kick Rocks, and I gotta do.
Speaker 1: I don't owe you anything like my person is gone.
Speaker 1: And so it brought so much clarity. In that year
Speaker 1: I cleaned house. I let go of more than half
Speaker 1: my team. Some people, just a handful of them I
Speaker 1: felt bad about because they were delivering. But it's just
Speaker 1: that we didn't have the capacity. So there is a
Speaker 1: handful of people I felt bad about, but the vast
Speaker 1: majority needed to go. They been needed to go. So
Speaker 1: it was like Kick Rocks his ride. Y'all stay mad
Speaker 1: at me. Keep my name out of your mouth, thoup, because
Speaker 1: let me tell you something about my name in this industry.
Speaker 1: I'm not somebody who you want to drag. You don't
Speaker 1: know who I know and who I've held. So everybody
Speaker 1: keep it cute, and I'll keep it cute too, And
Speaker 1: be mindful of who you tell that you work for me,
Speaker 1: because I'm gonna be honest. Like I had to tell
Speaker 1: a couple people, I see you got my name on
Speaker 1: your site, which is cool, But if someone reaches out
Speaker 1: to me, just know I'm gonna be honest about your
Speaker 1: time here. As long as you okay with me being
Speaker 1: honest about your time here, continue to keep my name
Speaker 1: on your site. I can't toward tell you how many
Speaker 1: people took my name off their site because they know
Speaker 1: the work that they didn't do while they were here. Right,
Speaker 1: so a different Tiffany came out. I didn't know how
Speaker 1: to set boundaries before I let people walk all over me.
Speaker 1: She's gone, you know. And I was slowly tiptoeing toward that,
Speaker 1: and I wish I would have got to that per
Speaker 1: place sooner. The space that I am in now. Book
Speaker 1: launch had me a little bit stressed, as y'all know,
Speaker 1: Like my book Made Home, the workbook version of Get
Speaker 1: You with Money came out in November, so there was
Speaker 1: about a month to two months of like, it was
Speaker 1: a pretty hectic time. But besides that, your girl's not
Speaker 1: doing all that I'm not. I mean, there are pulls
Speaker 1: on me and I'm like, then you do it. You
Speaker 1: want to done, so you do it. Like I said,
Speaker 1: clear boundaries from family to business to I just have
Speaker 1: to get rid of a potential partnership. The other day,
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, this doesn't seem fair and it's not aligned. Sorry.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, I said, no, sorry, But you will though,
Speaker 1: because people will pull you to the depths of the
Speaker 1: dirt and then when your body is broken, they will
Speaker 1: step over it to then suck somebody else dry. It's
Speaker 1: not happening anymore, I said, clear boundaries. I don't want
Speaker 1: to do it. Pick somebody else. You know, I'm nicer
Speaker 1: about it if you allow me to. But if you
Speaker 1: can't hear that you will, you're gonna feel I don't
Speaker 1: want to do it. Sorry, my mind's been made up.
Speaker 1: This is the language I use now when like someone's
Speaker 1: not listening, So I start off with thank you so much.
Speaker 1: It's not really a lot. Oh you don't listening. No,
Speaker 1: I'm okay with people being okay. Drell my late husband
Speaker 1: used to always say, and I didn't get it. He
Speaker 1: would always say, I'd rather you be mad at me
Speaker 1: than me be mad at you, meaning like, if one
Speaker 1: of us got to be this point, it let it
Speaker 1: be you. Let it be you. Why should I break
Speaker 1: my back so you could be okay? Okay? You know,
Speaker 1: like I am. I am all for equity. I believe
Speaker 1: in fairness, but what I realize is oftentimes I'm the
Speaker 1: only one at the table navigating from that place, and
Speaker 1: so once I peak game that you would let me
Speaker 1: drown just so you can have your space in the sun.
Speaker 1: Oh it's on by, you know. And so as a
Speaker 1: result of that, I have way more peace. I just
Speaker 1: did an interview with The New Yorker the other day,
Speaker 1: and like she was asking me about, like what my
Speaker 1: day is a successful entrepreneur looks like my day starts
Speaker 1: at ten and ends at three. I starts at ten am.
Speaker 1: That's when my first quote unquote meeting or whatever starts,
Speaker 1: because it takes typically like a two hour walk in
Speaker 1: the morning. I like to have a slow morning, you know,
Speaker 1: everybody can wait. And then at three, this is the
Speaker 1: average day, you know, not during book launch or whatever,
Speaker 1: but during the average day. At three, I'm done. No meetings, no,
Speaker 1: no podcasts, no this, no that. No fit within the
Speaker 1: confines of the boundaries that I've set. I don't take
Speaker 1: meetings on Wednesdays, and I don't work on Fridays, and
Speaker 1: I typically and I don't work weekends. Fit within the
Speaker 1: confounds of the boundaries that I've set. Depending on where
Speaker 1: you are in life, in business, or whatever, you might
Speaker 1: not be able to have these boundaries, but you can
Speaker 1: set some boundaries. It takes practice, it might take some
Speaker 1: therapy to figure out why you're not setting it. But
Speaker 1: you are deserving of setting healthy boundaries for yourself because
Speaker 1: if you don't, you will be filled beyond capacity until
Speaker 1: you pop to what end? To what end? You know?
Speaker 1: And I am always viciously vetting, like I'm looking at
Speaker 1: my life now and I'm like, what other things don't
Speaker 1: suit me? And I'm making some tremendous changes as a result.
Speaker 1: You're gonna see some major changes in the next year.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't want to do that anymore. Oh
Speaker 1: you should. I don't want to do it anymore. And
Speaker 1: I'm making changes not to have to. You know, like,
Speaker 1: I'm forty four now. I still got my knees, my bag,
Speaker 1: you know, I can still run. You know, I still
Speaker 1: got my hairline, you know, good skin, child? What I
Speaker 1: don't know if I wasting these cute years? You know?
Speaker 1: Now I want to travel more. I want to do
Speaker 1: my work, my book again, my children's book. I want
Speaker 1: to do a series. You know, there are things that
Speaker 1: I want to do that. In order to have to
Speaker 1: do them, I have to clear space, and so I'm
Speaker 1: intentionally clearing space. And step one in recreating and unlifting
Speaker 1: this burden of overwork and overwhelmed is to one acknowledge
Speaker 1: this is not how I want it to go. Say
Speaker 1: it out loud to yourself, tell your best, to tell someone.
Speaker 1: That is step one. This is not how I wanted
Speaker 1: to go, this is not what I I don't like
Speaker 1: it here, that's okay, say it, cry about it, or
Speaker 1: whatever you gotta do. That's step one. Step two is
Speaker 1: to admit I need help. I'm not sure actually how
Speaker 1: to get out from this? I need help. Step two
Speaker 1: is to say need help, and then step three is
Speaker 1: to go find it. Is it a business coach, is
Speaker 1: it a therapist? Is it my bestie? Is it my mama?
Speaker 1: Is it my whatever that looks like? Ask for it.
Speaker 1: Seek out the guides that you're going to need to
Speaker 1: help navigate the process. I am the queen of asking
Speaker 1: for help. Now, why should I figure it out my
Speaker 1: own That might take me ten years, when with doctor
Speaker 1: Green it takes me ten months. Ask for help. You
Speaker 1: are deserving. Ask for help. That's step three. Ask for help,
Speaker 1: ask for help, ask for help. Then step four to
Speaker 1: start to put the help into practice. Doctor Green gives
Speaker 1: me homework to do. I do it because what are
Speaker 1: we doing? Like literally, there are things with doctor Green
Speaker 1: that I was able to break the habits in ten
Speaker 1: months that I have been navigating since I was ten
Speaker 1: years old. Thirty years work it and through a thing,
Speaker 1: and in ten months me and doctor Green broke it,
Speaker 1: broke the habit. I'm like, damn, I don't want to
Speaker 1: spend thirty years working on a thing when I could
Speaker 1: spend three months navigating and breaking it. So I put
Speaker 1: I do the work. She gives me homework. I do
Speaker 1: the work right, and then five like celebrate your wins
Speaker 1: and acknowledge like the like give awareness to the thing,
Speaker 1: like wow, I'm now training for a five K even
Speaker 1: though I probably could do one now if I will't
Speaker 1: because I walk like five miles a day. But I
Speaker 1: wanted to take my health to the next level. And
Speaker 1: I said to myself, like I need something to reach toward.
Speaker 1: So y'all gave me this really great app called couch
Speaker 1: to five K. Thank you so much for the woman
Speaker 1: who did that. And so I as I am training.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm reminding myself to celebrate the awareness, to
Speaker 1: celebrate how far I've come. Today was like really day
Speaker 1: one hour, although I've been I was playing with a
Speaker 1: few apps, but today's my official day one. And as
Speaker 1: I was like running in the middle of running, because
Speaker 1: why should I wait until I won the five k?
Speaker 1: In the middle, I said, look at you. I'm really
Speaker 1: proud of you, Tiffany. You said you were going to
Speaker 1: do a thing. You did a thing. You acknowledge that
Speaker 1: you didn't like where you were physically. You said I
Speaker 1: need help. That's number two. Three. You ask for help
Speaker 1: right here on this podcast for a guide for help.
Speaker 1: Y'all gave me apps. I'm now using it right then,
Speaker 1: I'm doing what the help told me to do. That's four.
Speaker 1: And then five, I am celebrating the awareness and the progress,
Speaker 1: you know, and then you repeat, that's it. If you
Speaker 1: want to see yourself move forward, if you want to
Speaker 1: break past this burnout, if you want to keep beyond
Speaker 1: where you are now, those are the steps. We are
Speaker 1: not meant to go this alone. You're not. One of
Speaker 1: my friends has this quote that he always says that
Speaker 1: the lone wolf perish in the winter but the pack survives.
Speaker 1: Did you hear what I said? I said, the lone
Speaker 1: wolf perishes in the winter, but the pack survives. What
Speaker 1: does that mean? It means that you might survive on
Speaker 1: your own in spring and fall, right even in summer. Okay, cute,
Speaker 1: But eventually winter comes a time that's too hard to
Speaker 1: navigate by yourself. You will not survive it, not successfully.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't care how much money you have,
Speaker 1: how much influence, how much beauty, how much talent. I
Speaker 1: don't care. At some point you need people. The sooner
Speaker 1: you get good at asking for help, the faster you
Speaker 1: get to where you're going. There's an African proverb. If
Speaker 1: you want to go fast, go alone. If you want
Speaker 1: to go far, go with others, ask for help. Okay, So,
Speaker 1: like when you see your girl out here like this
Speaker 1: year alone, I have lived it up. I went to
Speaker 1: Kenya in January, Egypt in March, Paris, London, the Amafi
Speaker 1: Coast in was that August, No, that was October, and
Speaker 1: a bunch of other places in between, none of which
Speaker 1: I shared on social media, because girl, I don't care.
Speaker 1: But I share that I have been living in the
Speaker 1: fullness that life has to offer me because life taught
Speaker 1: me a valuable lesson that at some point you will
Speaker 1: lose the things that you love, whether it's your favorite
Speaker 1: pair of shoes or your favorite person, at some point,
Speaker 1: you will lose the things that you love. Are you
Speaker 1: maximizing your time with those things? I love to travel,
Speaker 1: I love my friends, I love my family. You know,
Speaker 1: I love doing this podcast. I love Mandy Am. I
Speaker 1: maximizing the time, the blessed treasure time that I have.
Speaker 1: And you can't do that if you are wasting it
Speaker 1: away on things don't bring you joy and peace and happiness.
Speaker 1: Certainly as adults, there are things that we must do,
Speaker 1: you know, as adults. But beyond that, so many of
Speaker 1: us are spending time on things that not only don't
Speaker 1: we have to do them, it doesn't even enjoy alignment
Speaker 1: or happiness. You know, I'm off that, and I hope
Speaker 1: that you're off that too. Okay, Well, before we take
Speaker 1: a quick break, just remind remember if you are a businesswoman,
Speaker 1: especially if you're a black woman in business, and you
Speaker 1: would like some guidance, you know, I mentor via the
Speaker 1: Patreon platform. I'm under my mentor Tiffany dot com, so
Speaker 1: you can join us there's twenty bucks a month depending
Speaker 1: when you listen to this, but it'll probably be there
Speaker 1: for a while. Twenty bucks a month, and I do
Speaker 1: a class once a month, I give resources every week,
Speaker 1: I bring in guest speakers. I keep it at that
Speaker 1: price point because so many people are wanting mentors and
Speaker 1: I don't want stress, because I enjoy doing that. And
Speaker 1: I will continue to mentor there until I don't feel
Speaker 1: like it anymore and it doesn't bring me joy. I'll
Speaker 1: get this good. Go ahead on over to mymenttor tippany
Speaker 1: dot com if you're looking for mentorships specifically for business owners,
Speaker 1: especially women, especially black women. But I don't turn anyone away.
Speaker 1: That's just like I center black women over there. You know,
Speaker 1: although the advice is good no matter who you are. Bye,