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TRANSCRIPT

Yasmine 0:02
Hello friends and welcome back to another episode of do business better 2022. I am so happy to be bringing you today’s guest speaker, Amanda Muhammad. She is an international Mindfulness Based Stress Management and psychological safety consultant. She’s based here in Dallas and is someone I consider a dear friend, and is about she is just phenomenal. You’re about to find out trust me. Alright, so Amanda has experience in as I mentioned, stress management and psychological safety. She studied management and leadership, organizational leadership, and is now pursuing her PhD in business psychology as it relates to psychological safety. So it’s all about creating my understanding is it’s all about creating that safety in the workplace. It’s all about I don’t know if your studies are all about this, but I know you’re all about preventing burnout, caring for oneself, especially as an entrepreneur and a professional. If you have not met Amanda yet, I would love for our audience to hear from you, Amanda, a little bit about you and your work and, and what your jam is.

Amanda 1:19
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for the introduction. It’s always a pleasure to be able to sit in your company, my dear friend. Thank you so much. So yeah, I actually, I’ll tell you a little bit about how I came into this work. So when I was in college at the University of Kansas, my family was going through just a really hard time. And my other brother, David, he was down at Emporia State University, and at Emporia he had taken this like gym class and and that’s where he learned that like movement, and breathing was super helpful for stress. So he’s like, I got it all figured out. He tells my mom, he’s like, you know, Mom, you need to take a yoga class, you need to breathe, you need to stretch. So my mom enrolls in this, like random yoga class at our local community college. And you know, she starts to enjoy it. So at the time when I was in college, like I was not sleeping well. And I was not coping with everything that I was experiencing very well. And so my mom invites me up for a yoga class. And in that yoga class, at the very end, if you all have done yoga, there’s a practice, there’s a pose, it’s called Shavasana. shavasana is the state between being awake and being relaxed. And in the state, you know, I was in my shavasana come out, I go, mom, somebody was snoring so loud. And she’s like, Mandy, that was you. And I was like, What? What is it that we just did, that allowed me to get rest beyond any rest that I’ve had in the last like, months, naturally. And so she got me this little purple yoga mat from TJ Maxx. And I began like rolling it out and just like playing around with it, and what I didn’t really know what I was doing. But I know that when I was intentional about my breath, and when I was intentional about movement, I noticed a difference in the way that I felt. And fast forward, I began, you know, I was in my studies, I was studying business, and I wanted to be, you know, the, I wanted to be a director of HR for a big company. That’s just all I all I wanted to do. And then I got to corporate America, and I looked around, and most people were pretty miserable. And they weren’t really doing anything to help us, you know, navigate our stress. But I had these different tools in my back pocket that I had learned from my mom and from reading books, like the secret and things like that. And so as I began to implement those things, they helped me navigate the workplace. And as I shared them with other people, they help them navigate the workplace. And so I went from this big public company that I worked at, went to a small private company saw the same thing, lots of people around me were really stressed, very few tools to help us manage it left that company went to a school, same thing, lots of stress, very few tools. But I began sharing it with people. And that was really, that was really nice and really fun. And I really enjoyed teaching these practices and eventually became a certified yoga instructor, mindfulness trainer, compassion fatigue trainer and started getting these different certifications, and found a way to kind of marry the two of management and leadership and business studies, but also well being and how do I bring those two together so that people can actually maximize their potential and thrive in their positions. So, five years ago, now, I just hit my anniversary, I decided that I was going to do this work full time, yay. And I left my job and I started this business. And so now what I do is facilitate training and develop resources, mostly for schools and different organizations globally, on ways that we can manage stress and began experiencing and creating psychological safety at work.

Yasmine 4:44
So here for all of that, thank you for sharing your story. I can absolutely relate in terms of, you know, going into corporate America, just Seeing how people were out here living, and just it was normal, it was expected it was the standard. And I saw it and thought this is unacceptable for me, I cannot be, I cannot be in this environment long term, because it’s going to continue to wear away at my well being at my very existence and made a decision as well to leave corporate America and start my own practice. began working with clients on my own and be able to create that psychological safety for myself, which at times, you know, I didn’t do too great, it’s definitely a process, it’s definitely a journey, you know, and I’ve got to figure it out. Along the way, and continually, you know, once you have it figured out there, there are always my understanding is or at least my experience has been is there, there are always things that can be enhanced, there are always things that can be changed, there are different seasons of life in business, that our needs change throughout. And then add in that that next layer of we are entrepreneurs, and we are the leaders of our organizations. And now we have a responsibility to our team, to create a safe environment to create a supportive environment to ensure that there are tools and resources available for team members and for ourselves to leverage. I know you and I discussed modeling such behavior and habits for those that are in our organizations. And so all right, I know you’ve got three commonly made mistakes, mistakes, made mistakes, you’ve made yourself. Tell me let’s just dive right in. What is number one?

Amanda 6:51
So number one is, I would say thinking that self care and stress management has to be some like long drawn out thing, right? What the approach that we take with my company is looking at what are actionable things that we can do throughout the day. And I want to tell you a little bit about why. A really like good example, just yesterday, I was at a coffee shop, and I met a teacher and we just like got to talking and she learned about what I did and found out that I do like education, consulting, I worked with a lot of schools and stuff. And she’s like, you know, is there anything that you would offer differently than what most people tell us? Like my principal, he sends out emails and he’s like, you know, make sure you’re taking a walk, drink your water, get your sleep. And it just was such an affirming moment, because that’s exactly why we take the approach that we do at Mako mindfulness. And that is finding actionable things that you can do throughout the day to manage your stress. A lot of times people say, you know, when you’re stressed, do these different things in the audience’s that I would be in front of were incredibly busy people, they didn’t have time to go for walks or as as she pointed out, yesterday, she’s like, you know, yoga is expensive, you know? So what are some of those things that anyone can access, and especially throughout the day, that doesn’t take much time, but that has long lasting impacts, right. So you can do quick things like breathing exercises, I know, even prior to when we you know, recorded this, we talked about, you know, just taking that moment for gratitude and those little mental shifts in how big of a difference they can make when you can just shift your perspective and take that moment to pause, take a step back, honor what it is that you need, if it’s, you know, a different thought process, if it’s a deep breath, and taking that step and allowing you to continue moving through your day. And then a lot of times, you know, when I first started doing this work, I was saying, you know, you should get eight hours of sleep, and you should do these things. And a woman, this woman goes, you know, what am I supposed to do when I have four kids and I’m a caregiver. And in that moment, I was like, ah, like, this is not, this is not always realistic, right? So I focus more so on those small steps that we can do, that can collect and make an additive change, right? It’s in those little things that you do that make a big difference. So don’t think that you have to, you know, uproot and take seven days just for self care, self cares, the little things that you also do throughout the day, it’s boundaries. It’s all those little decisions that you make that create a better life for yourself. Whoo,

Yasmine 9:20
okay. self care is not an isolated activity. Self Care is a lifestyle.

Amanda 9:26
Yes, it’s a live way of life. It’s advocating for yourself. It’s speaking up for yourself. It’s saying no, it’s setting up, you know, differences. Self care can look so many different ways. And, you know, it’s all the things you know, people do like self care is not breathing exercises. self care is not gratitude. It’s, you know, radical, you know, organizational change. It’s that and it’s breathing exercises. Self Care is taking accountability for yourself. It’s not waiting on anyone else or any permission to say this is what I need for me to show up and to be able to thrive and to be happy and to feel accomplished, like it is taking care of yourself, no matter what that looks like.

Yasmine 10:08
I think this conversation is so timely considering the past few years and what we have gone through collectively as a society. Yeah, I mean, I can only speak for myself personally, you know, and for me, and it’s incredible also to think how there’s no such thing as one size fits all, we are billions of human beings. And we each have our own unique story and our own unique needs and our own unique interests and what we care about in value. And so, for me, my personal experience last few years has been new motherhood, you know, I’m a new mom, my son just turned three. And it’s like, I was in what, in hindsight, looking back, I’m like, I was in survival mode, you know, just like trying to survive. And I think a lot of us are our default, and our normal existence is survival mode. And we don’t even realize it, because I know, I didn’t even realize it. I was just trying to survive. Exactly, you know. And so when I began to seriously implement these practices, and integrate them into my, which I did for years, and then things changed, and it was New Seasons, and you know, we we mix it up, and then I’ve gotten I’ve gotten back to it caring for myself physically being more intentional about my, what I’m eating, and throughout the day, taking time to myself on a daily basis on a weekly basis. I’m like, Well, I was really sleeping on myself, like I caring for yourself. is unmatched. There’s nothing like it. There’s game changing, is it?

Amanda 11:48
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Yasmine 11:51
Yeah. It’s, I feel that it is a part of the human experience, for sure. You know, we each have our own experience, though, as it relates to that. And we also, I think, culturally, there are a lot of differences as well. When it comes to gender to, you know, it’s whether within American society or globally, you know, there are differences to consider their their different expectations to consider there, you know, as a woman, I refuse to drag myself into the to run myself into the ground. absolutely refuse to do that.

Amanda 12:31
Yeah. And I think that giving people ourselves right permission for it to look like whatever we need it to look like, is really important. No, that’s why I always tell people, you know, when I show up, and I do these, like corporate trainings or whatever speaking engagements, I’m like, you know, this is my approach, right? Welcome to the Mako methods, like, that’s great. But it’s really about what works for you. And I always say, I don’t care what you do, as long as it’s like healthy, right? But in that it’s consistent, it’s in the little things that you do in the consistency of you doing it, that’s going to actually make a shift for you, right. And then of course, with with my practices, like inviting in breath, and movement, and things like that there are there are very, you know, core scientific reasons for why those things aren’t important. But you can bring that into anything, you can bring that into art class, you can bring that into your dance class, you can bring that onto your daily walk, like, it’s just whatever that looks like for you. Just make sure that you’re doing something. Because when we don’t do anything, we default back to whatever it is that we’ve already done, right? So the reason why it’s just really easy top of mind, like, Oh, let me get a drink. Let me go, let me cut this person out, let me you know, whatever is because that’s your default state. That’s what you’ve practiced. And that’s what you’re hardwired to do. But we can begin to build new habits, better, better habits for ourselves, healthier habits for ourselves, and strengthen those neural pathways so that when we are under stress, when we do need to take better care of ourselves, we actually have resources in place, and our brain knows what works for us.

Yasmine 14:03
Oh, yes. All of that, all of that. So it’s a daily thing. It’s a lifestyle,

Amanda 14:10
it’s a lifestyle. That is exactly the way that I would look at it, it is a lifestyle, it is a decision, it is saying, you know, I know that this is what the scope what the world could look like. But this is what I wanted to look like for me. And I just want to like add on here, because we’ve had this conversation before, too. I feel like a lot of times as entrepreneurs, like it’s like the expectations, like you should want to make, you know, billions of dollars. But like it’s okay to find what that number looks like for you to and to allow yourself to strategically get there instead of pressuring yourself to hit a norm and to hit a goal that’s not really yours. Because if it’s not truly in alignment, like it’s not going to come easy and you’re going to be there’s so much resistance and fight there but it’s because you’re fighting for something that was never really what you desired what was really on your heart. So be really clear about what it is that you want. For your life, what you want your life to look like in design around that versus designing around some arbitrary goal that’s just gonna have you stressed out trying to hit some stuff because the internet told you you should like, I feel like when we, when we started our businesses, and you know, when we first started when we first connected 2018 You know, everything about six figures, and then it’s like, okay, got that, like, oh, seven figures? And it’s like, but do you have eight? And it’s just like, yeah.

Yasmine 15:28
I don’t know. I mean, there will always be, there’s always

Amanda 15:31
gonna be the goalpost keeps moving. So what yours is, and be radically confident in that.

Yasmine 15:38
So that is such a perfect foundation to my next question, which is, my question is, where do we begin, if I’m an individual that recognizes I need to incorporate self care, I need to better care for myself, I’ve been neglecting myself, I’ve been neglecting my needs. Perhaps you’re thinking I don’t even know what my needs are. Maybe you aren’t clear on what the vision is for your life that you want to create. So would you say that it is gaining that clarity around the vision? You said, design it around that? And then does it come? Does it really come back to your your daily practice your? What does today? What are you doing from one day to the next? And is that really what creates? What can create an impact and help you experience that shift? And the benefits of caring for yourself?

Amanda 16:31
Yeah, I absolutely think so. I think the first thing that you could do is if you if you recognize yourself in any of these things that we’ve talked about, like that self awareness is key. So building awareness around what it is that your needs are, and also like giving yourself grace and understanding like, you know, maybe you’ve been in survival mode, just trying to build, build, build, build, build, I have been there. But it’s also understanding like, Okay, I’ve been building where, what am I building? where’s this going? Why am I doing this? Right? And is this actually conducive to the type of life that I want? Is my health okay, like, how are my relationships? How’s the rest of my life outside of just this business? And am I creating something that’s that I actually want? You know, I’m really big on making sure that I’m not creating something I don’t desire, people are always trying to plant seeds in my mind, like, oh, when you should hire all these trainers underneath you. But that means I have to manage a bunch of trainers never desired that for my life, and I’m very firm on that, right? So being really clear about what it is that you want, and what it is that you need. And then absolutely, consistency is going to be the key, right? So let’s say that, I don’t know, super body positive, but let’s say you’re a size eight, and you want to be a size four, right? You go and you do one workout. Well, but if you go and you’re consistent, you go three times a week, you manage your diet, it’s in those things that you do, right, that’s going to help move the needle and get you to the goal that you ultimately want. And that’s whether it’s weight loss, whether it’s a new number in your business, whether it’s you know, taking care of yourself. It’s about practice, like, you know, I always use the reference in my trainings about like, you know, people, I’m like, did you ever play basketball? Or did you? Are you a dancer, I danced for 16 years. So when my dance teacher would play a song, how did I know what to do? I knew what to do, because I had been practicing. So as soon as that song comes on, I already know what to do. And it’s the same thing when it comes to taking care of yourself. It’s about the practice that you do ahead of time. Think of it as taking a preventative approach to managing your stress versus being reactive. So you’re putting these things in ahead of time, so that when something inevitably pops up, your brain knows, hey, do that thing. We like that. And that way, feel safe. That way we feel protected. So that’s why like when you’re under extreme stress, and somebody’s like, breathe, you’re like, Are you kidding me? Right? Because it’s not a habit for you. It’s not natural. So it’s about making taking care of yourself a natural thing. Once you do that, it’s a lot easier for your brain to be like, Okay, we’re extremely stressed, we need to take care of ourselves, because it recognizes

Yasmine 19:10
right. The self awareness is real.

Amanda 19:13
It’s so real, it is so real, you have to have it. And all of these things. Think of them like a muscle, the more that you exercise, the stronger that they become. So another thing in my framework is like journaling exercises, making sure that you’re taking time to reflect check in notice how you feel, notice how these different days are impacting you look for the trends across your journaling, you know, have you had several days where things are kind of like dark do I need to do I need to seek out additional support additional resources, right. And all of that is okay. But it’s about knowing and being aware of what your needs are, and then also taking accountability to meet those needs. Because the reality is, is that, you know, most folks aren’t going to do it for you the way that you do. They have their own lives to take care of. Oh, yes.

Yasmine 19:59
Oh, Oh, that is a wake up call, I think we all experience at some point or another is one, I cannot rely on others to care for me to be responsible for my happiness to prioritize what I prioritize. I mean, the list goes on. So many things that I want to expand on in, in that we have two more that we need to get to so Okay. All right, number two.

Amanda 20:27
All right, so number six is thinking that you can beat burnout, right? You know, a lot of people think that, you know, I can just power through, I can just keep going, right? So, you know, when you are experiencing lots of stress, like you can cope with the pressure, right, like, you find ways to cope with the pressure, push through whatever, but when you hit burnout, right, like, when you are in a space where the motivation is not there, you know, like, you feel hopeless, you feel helpless. Everything is just like, you know, you’re just completely spent no energy, there is no gas left to go. That isn’t there, girl. Girl, me too? Well,

Yasmine 21:04
I think we all have.

Amanda 21:05
Yeah, you know, and I have to be honest, you know, being in this line of work. Sometimes it’s like, it’s tough to admit, but I have to be honest, especially as an entrepreneur, like, Yes, I teach things. And I’m building a company I have, I have, you know, contractors, employees that I work with, and clients to take care of, and then my own personal life, and you know, so I experienced burnout in the pandemic, you know, especially like, got back into that survival mode of just like, okay, world is world is going, who knows what’s going on? Like, I have to make sure that I am good, right? Like this is attached to also keeping these lights on keeping food in my fridge like everything, right? So I think that understanding that, once you get to that point, and you are literally out of gas, things look different as far as what you need to do. And I’ll never forget sitting with a friend of mine who’s a therapist in November, and we just talked about the reality. So this is November 2021, that we sat down and talked about me experiencing burnout and how I was how I was coping and not coping, and you know, so I want to share some of those practical tools that I used on the other side of this. So the first thing was actually slowing down. So when you experience burnout, when you’re under lots of stress, you get this buildup of cortisol, the stress hormone, right. And so I had such a high cortisol buildup, and the only way to release that cortisol is to actually slow down and allow your body to release it. Because the more that I go, the harder that I go, I’m just adding more cortisol in my brain and my body is just on overload. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And you

Yasmine 22:43
think the solution is okay, let me just keep going. Let me just go fix all these problems. I’ll make it work, it’ll happen.

Amanda 22:50
It’s not things are falling through the cracks, right? Like I’m not showing up. It not even, of course, I’m not fully I’m barely halfway. Like it’s just, it’s at a point where you can keep going, but your quality is now compromised, because you’re pushing yourself into a space that you don’t need to be. So the first thing is slowing down. Like I literally slowed down my talk, I slowed down my walk, I slowed down everything that I did, and allowed my body to rest yoga was super helpful here, right? Like, just getting back on my mat and being really intentional with my movement with my breath and allowing myself to actually relax and to release, like, going on overdrive to make sure that I am slowing down was huge. Another big thing for me was setting up more boundaries as far as my pupils access to me. So that’s when I made the decision like during the day, I don’t take very many calls. I like I put everything on Do Not Disturb so my phone stays on Do Not Disturb my email stays on Do Not Disturb or

Yasmine 23:58
okay bounder games strong out of office.

Amanda 24:00
Oh, it um, forever out of office. Like my, my OB and the other day, she’s like, Amanda, are you aware that you’re I’m like, I’m fully aware that my out of office is permanently on. There’s no date on when it comes back. It says that my assistant will get out of office. I’m just out of office like you know, no, I’ll be I’ll be back soon. But that helped me to not feel so pressured to immediately respond because before I did, of course I’m strict on of course a 48 hour turnaround but really it was more like a four and if I’m really good at saying our right yeah so I put that on my my out of office on my email my Do Not Disturb on my phone. A lot a couple folks and my parents like our own breakthrough like you know, just in case anybody needs me but that was the thing. She was like Amanda she said Get over yourself. She was like I know that people call you they want to reach out they want to talk to you. They want you to help them to cope with things but she’s like, you know for yourself. They will find some already else right now you have to take care of you. And that was just like, for me, you know, you didn’t hear that sometimes. Yeah, and you know, it’s definitely created some friction, but that’s okay with me too, because I actually am so much happier with giving people less access to me and also not forcing myself to be on so much. And I also really intentionally practice like, I would let my phone ring and not respond immediately. So I could train myself from being out of the habit of ring, hello, ring Hello, and giving people immediate access. Even when I see messages and things. Now, this gets a little out of hand, because I’ll read the message. And then I’ll totally forget, especially if it gets bogged down. Not forcing myself to feel like I have to immediately respond to everything and making that a practice. And like I said, rub some people wrong, that’s okay. Because it’s like, it’s rub me the right way.

Yasmine 25:53
Okay. matters.

Amanda 25:56
Yeah. And then I also just have to say, you know, trusting myself, so a lot of times when it does come to boundaries, right? Boundaries, we think that it’s for other people to uphold, they didn’t respect my boundaries. A lot of times, we think people aren’t respecting our boundaries, but we really don’t have any right boundaries are not for other people to uphold boundaries are for me to uphold, it’s for me to know what my boundary is and to take the course of action that I need to enforce and implement that boundary. And I’d say the same thing with trust. Like, it’s not about giving trust to other people to get it done. Right. It’s trusting myself to make sure that all take the necessary actions to protect myself.

Yasmine 26:34
Oh, absolutely. I mean, bound, I’ve said this, so many times, boundaries is our favorite V word around here, all about the boundaries, we’re all about creating the boundaries, having the boundaries in place, communicating the boundaries. And then of course, it’s our job to enforce the boundaries, others are not responsible for enforcing those, or making sure that they are effectively communicated to those that are in your world. I think so many of our members of our community will find this helpful, especially as it relates to accessibility, when you are a professional, a service provider, your consultant or a coach are working with clients one on one, or even in a group setting, you know, and being on call at all times being just a Slack message away a Voxer message away and Instagram, please don’t use in your Instagram, DMS, communicate with clients. But you know, what would you do? Either way, whatever electronic communication is, you know, email, email, don’t even get me started on email. Now, the instantaneous recent expectation of an immune response, so unhealthy, taxing on us as human taxing,

Amanda 27:51
but I think it’s our responsibility, right? Like, as, as the people who run the business, we get to design this. So we get to say up front, as soon as they sign that, when they signed that contract, let them know. And then as soon as that goes through and put everything automated to so that you don’t have to have somebody else do the do the hard work for you, and send out an automatic email that says, I’m so excited to work with you. Our hours are this if you if you message us outside of these hours, we will get back to you at this time, right putting auto responders on things and leveraging which is the next point that we’re talking about, but looking at how can we begin to make sure that we are clear about what those boundaries are, you know, like so that we don’t have to continue to we don’t have to, like we have to speak up and say these hard things, let it say for you, you know?

Yasmine 28:41
Absolutely. Oh, I’m certainly an advocate of that, and of clearly communicating your communication policies in your contract, having it laid out in writing. Okay, very clear what they can expect, you know, there is no, we are not allowing any room for negotiation throughout the entire relationship. Because when you don’t lay it out clear as day, especially in writing, you leave it open for negotiation. You know, you leave it up for debate as far as whether or not your response was timely, whether or not you are effectively rendering services if you’re providing a service to this client. And so decide design it the way you desire it to be, decide what you want those policies to be and then communicate that. And I love that you touched on boundaries as it relates to caring for ourselves, because I think that’s an overlooked consideration.

Amanda 29:41
Yeah, sure. I think that, you know, leveraging your systems and your boundaries as a form of self care is huge. Let’s get into number three. Yeah, for sure. So number three, is keeping things hard by trying to do it all right, like fine, okay, just

Yasmine 29:58
just say my name. Next time, okay,

Amanda 30:01
me then right? Don’t we all do it though, because we’ve shared so many tips over the years of ways that we are, you know, leveraging our resources. And as we started hiring and expanding our companies and automating things, things like SOPs, things like automation, like systems, our self care, the amount of little things that would slipped through the cracks, if it wasn’t for my dubsado, for my clickup, for my acuity for everything that we use over here, like, There’s no way. And I remember the first time when I got dubsado, I was like, this probably would save me paying somebody like $35,000, because it’s doing the whole job of what I would have needed an assistant to do, right? Like my OPM comes in and sets it up. And that is also self care. Because what do I get back, I get time, which is our most valuable resource, right? So I think that leveraging you know those things. And, you know, I used to say people say, Well, how do you manage your stress as an entrepreneur, and I used to jokingly say, Well, I raise my rates, but it’s really not a joke. Because when my rates were lower, right, and especially as a full time entrepreneur, my rates were lower, I had to grind to keep my lights on, right? When you are able to offer things at a higher ticket, right? You can, it gives you more time. So now, you know, you’ve positioned yourself to be able to buy back time, so that you can rest so that you can have those down periods. So now at this point, I work anywhere between one to five times a month. And I love that for me, that is exactly the kind of I love that for you to write, like, I love that. For me, that’s exactly the kind of life that I want. Could I work every single day? I could do I want to? Absolutely not. It’s about my energy management that is so much of what self care and stress management is, it’s knowing what it is that you desire and positioning yourself very strategically to get yourself there, right. And then when you do start to leverage systems, when you do start to, you know, use contractors or VAs or you know, hire employees and things like that, trusting them to get the work done. Right. Right. And I think that, you know, we touched on this so important to model to be able to say to show them what that looks like like me and my best friend, we have a running joke about you know, her boss and her boss is like always like, out like hiking. She’s like, Yeah, I’ll get back to it. She’s always got her like out of office on and but she’s teaching my best friend so much about boundaries, and so much about what’s okay, when it comes to taking care of yourself and getting your work done. And I think that that’s such an important point that needs to be made as as we continue to grow our businesses. What kind of example are we setting for our employees, for the people that we’re bringing in for the people who are actually coming in and running our companies? And do we trust them? And do they trust us to actually thrive in these companies, which brings us full circle to psychological safety, right. So when it comes to psychological safety, you know, there’s different components of psychological safety that we want to make sure that we have in the work environment, we want to make sure that people feel included, we want to make sure that people feel like they can learn, like they can contribute to the environment, and like they can challenge the environment, right, they can challenge ideas, and that they can say, hey, you should try doing it this way. And that they can feel proud of what they’ve done. But before we can do any of that, we have to manage stress. A stress brain is not a creative brain, it’s not a contributing brain, it’s not an inclusive brain. So we have to take care of ourselves. And then from there, we can begin to be more inclusive, we can begin to, you know, have all of these different levels of psychological safety that need to take place. And it’s about us taking care of ourselves for ourselves, but also for the ripple effects that take place in our organization, because we are the example that we set and what we allow because we set the tone for these other components to actually

Yasmine 34:03
take place. Wow, we are so powerful as human. Yeah, we really are.

Amanda 34:10
We really are, we really are. And we’re so powerful when we have that self awareness when we have that consistency. And when we show up for ourselves, when we show up from lunch for ourselves, we can love each other and take care of each other from a place of overflow rather than resentment. Because when we are you know, we show up for others because our boundaries have been broken. What do we do we do it with attitude, but when we can do it from a place of like, okay, like, I’m good. I can think clearly I can think critically I can serve. Like that’s where the good stuff is because it’s really done purely in from your heart.

Yasmine 34:42
Manda thank you so much for joining us. Like we really could have hours long have we do we normally do. We’re just not normally recording. again today? Yes. Oh, Oh, there’s so much there’s so much that I would love for us to expand on, I’m so grateful that you touched on everything that you did touch on, especially as it relates to caring for ourselves, really prioritizing our, our own needs. And what it is that we need to be our best selves to show up in our fullest energy. And, you know, and in a way that allows for us to be the best person that we desire to be on an individual level, but then also, as a leader of our organizations, because we have such, we have such an ability to impact those that are around us, and also to drive forward our organizations help us achieve those goals and those missions that we stand by. And it’s just the power of being. Yeah, the power of being, I guess, full stop. Right? The power of being and having that awareness. Yep.

Amanda 36:03
Absolutely. Just being, you know, that being is being present, right. And, and honoring whatever those needs are right in that moment, not worried about, you know, it’s just worried about, okay, right now, this is what I need. And being that and allowing yourself to be that and fully owning that moment,

Yasmine 36:21
and allowing for that to also positively influence those around you whether it’s within your community, within your family within your business. Yeah, you say it’s overflow,

Amanda 36:33
that’s just the overflow. Others Yeah, just like, like I said, like, when you know, my best friend, we, we joke about it. But she’s also like, you know what, I need to do this, but she feels empowered to take care of herself, because she’s watching her leader do the same thing. She’s watching somebody who is where she wants to be, say, you know, what, I’m taking care of myself. And I’m still successful in this role. Like, we don’t have ourselves down to create these businesses. And in fact, they will thrive when we take better care of ourselves. full

Yasmine 37:05
backs, you can say that, again, you can do it again, I have a client actually reminded me as it relates to modeling for our team members. A client of mine has one of his employees, sometimes logs in at like 11 o’clock at night, 12 o’clock at night, just like doing some work. And, you know, some people might think like, Oh, it’s good, I want my employees doing work, I want them getting their job, their work done, I want them doing their job, right. But he was like, No, this is unacceptable. This is not the culture that I don’t want to be working at 11 o’clock at night. And I don’t expect you to, and I actually don’t want you to be doing that. I want you to be resting and taking that time for yourself. And that way you can give 100% During the day, when we are actually getting work done. So I love the concept of modeling for those around us. And really, we stand to benefit so significantly, and those around us can benefit from the overflow. Absolutely. All that goodness. Thank you so much, Amanda, for joining us. It’s been such a great pleasure.

Amanda 38:12
Yes. Thank you so much for having me.

Yasmine 38:14
Thank you. And all of your information is going to be in the description of wherever you’re watching this video or this audio. But where are you hanging out most? Where can people connect with you to learn more?

Amanda 38:23
Oh, I’m hanging out the most on LinkedIn. I know that’s your jam these day. Yeah, LinkedIn is my jam. I’m in the creative manager program. I love it over there. You can definitely find me over there. I’m also on Instagram @makomindfulness. But yeah, come holler at me, you know, let me know if this was helpful, supportive to you and your entrepreneurial journey. Shoe between the two of us. I’m sure we’ve experienced anything though. Yeah, that’s right. Take good care of yourself and take care of others and create a great day.

Yasmine 38:58
A great day I intend to do so and I hope that everybody else does the same. Thank you so much, Amanda. I’ll talk to you soon. Okay, bye

Amanda 39:05
bye.