Latest / MaxValue Podcast / Blended or straight up? Work/life balance aligned with values Ft. Jocelyn Auyeung

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Blended or straight up? Work/life balance aligned with values Ft. Jocelyn Auyeung · MaxValue Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Not two separate things.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: There's no work bin and home ben.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: There's just been.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, insightful conversation in the session.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: What are you running towards?
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Evolver exit.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: The balance can feel very limiting and very constricting because it feels like you have to have equal parts to every single aspect of your life.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: But in reality, that is actually not our reality.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so a coach never gives advice, but I do help you gain clarity.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: You can't be a hundred percent in all of it, and that's okay.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: With business valuation, exit planning, strategy, and maybe a rethink of what exactly does work-life balance mean anyway.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Ben Town.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: Today's conversation pulls on a different thread of the word value.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: On this show, a lot of the time when we talk about value and maximizing value, we mean dollars, we mean enterprise value, multiples, and the number on a closing statement.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: And all of that matters.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's never not about the money.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: But there are other important meanings of the word value, such as the things that actually drive the behavior of every business owner, people they love, the things they care about, the life they are building around the business, and oftentimes that's why they're building the business in the first place.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: My guest today thinks about this for a living.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Jocelyn Al Young is a life and career transition coach who works with people navigating the messy in-between, a layoff that came out of nowhere, a medical leave that rearranged everything, or more quietly, the slow knowing that the job or the business or the title that is great on paper has stopped fitting for that person.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: She's also a mental health coach with Lira Health and the host of the Empowered Working Mom Revolution podcast, which is going on a seventh season.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Her stated personal values are honesty and courage, and you'll heal hear about both running through everything she says today.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Max Value, Jocelyn.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Ben, for having me on the podcast.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's great to be here.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Excited to have you.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: So before we really dive into the meat of things, you know, can you give our listeners a quick rundown of your coaching practice, Lyra podcast, and how everything fits together?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, all the things, all the things.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I really, I will say this the core thing of what really drives my work is really supporting people to find their own path and what works for them.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that's at the core of how I serve in both the podcast, as my work as a mental health coach at Lira Health, and in my in my practice as a life and career transition coach.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, as we walk through life, we are given a lot of shoulds, a lot of narratives of how life should be and how we should do things.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: And what I find in my work is when people can get clarity and understanding of what is most meaningful to them, that works for them, life becomes a beautiful and exciting experience.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why we're here is to create the life that we want and do the things that is meaningful to us.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's at the core of my work.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how everything ties together.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: The podcast is helping moms understand how they want to navigate their own motherhood journey on their own terms.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then as a mental health coach and as a coach, life and career transitions coach, is understanding, you know, how your decisions and actions are driven by the things that are most important to you, which is your values.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it's nice that one of the basic things that we all have in common is we all had a mom.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's totally true.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I I want to start with a little bit of vocabulary here because words have meaning.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the phrase work-life balance gets thrown around kind of a lot, has for a long time.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: And when we were prepping for the episode, you know, I caught myself using that term again.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, really right away in the context of our conversation in particular, I knew it wasn't the right word.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but I didn't really have a you know a better phrase, you know, near at hand.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: And and you did.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, can you tell our listeners what is wrong with the term balance and you know what what really should be the term that we're using instead?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: So work-life balance is a very popular phrase.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I did a little research uh around it, you know, it came back from came from like a long time ago in the industrial era, right?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so like balancing, you know, work and then your personal life, but balance can feel very limiting and very constricting because it feels like you have to have equal, like equal parts to every single aspect of your life.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: I've struggled with that term and I've, you know, done the experiment of trying to have work-life balance in my life.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, maybe you, the listener, you're listening, you're like, I feel like balance is like 50-50, right?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's balance.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: You have equal percentages on every aspect of your life.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: But in reality, that is actually not our reality, our everyday lived experience.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so work-life balance is not an accurate, you know, term that um really mirrors our own life experience.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so the the word that, you know, when Ben and I were prepping for this episode is the word I like to use is a blend.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't take credit for this because I heard this a long time ago um from another podcast.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: But a blend, as in if you think about like a smoothie, you have all these different ingredients and you blend it into, you know, your ninja mixer or whatever, your Vitamix, right?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: But it's a blend because we have all these different components in our life.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're a business owner, you have your business, but you also have your family.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: You also have if you have employees, there's all these different aspects that comprise who you are and how you show up in your life.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so the word blend is what has resonated me for the the most and also resonated for a lot of my clients.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it helps me kind of give myself, it actually helps me give myself a lot of grace in the way that I move through and engage with my life because there are there'll be moments where some days my business is more important than, you know, some of my personal things.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: And some some days or some seasons, you know, family is my most important priority.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to maybe simmer down on, you know, my business or my work.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that's okay.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's why blend, like you're blending things together because they all, these are all aspects of your life that make up who you are and also um guide you in how you engage with your life and how you navigate your life.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I like to say a blend, like work-life blend versus balance.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: A numbers-oriented person.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: I I would naturally gravitate towards saying, gosh, it would be great to allocate, you know, the X percentage of my time or effort or thought power or whatever it is to, you know, these particular instances.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: But like you said, there's infinite things that we're dealing with every single day, not a discrete number of things.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and and balance really does sound like a you know, you're trying to have a dis those discrete number of things come into balance.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, of course, I again I'm an accountant, I love balance, I love the idea of balance.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's the whole underpinnings of everything we do.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: But um but in in reality, and this probably is gonna sound obvious, uh, there's not two separate things.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: There's no work ben and home ben, there's just been.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so you know, the same guy who's sitting here at work is the the same guy who dropped off the kids this morning at school.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, so when you talk about, you know, say like personas or hats or light switches and you turning on and off, you know, whether you're you're talking about the CEO voice or the mom voice and the negotiator voice, how you know, how do you reconcile the holistic person idea with the fact that we do have to have, you know, a maybe a switch or a facet uh on and off.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a great, that's a great question because I think that's the thing that a lot of us human beings struggle with, right?
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like this like the personality versus the core of who we are, or or some people say true selves, right?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I think about it, and you know, the work I do with my clients is really coming back to our values and what's most important at the core of who we are, what drives our actions and our decisions.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: And these personas are just are just hats.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like I think of it as like skills, right?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like I used to be a teacher.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: I I would put on the hat of my teacher and teacher voice, but my presence, my energy of how I show up with this hat on is still the same.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, like one of my, you know, you mentioned in my intro, two of my core values is honesty and courage.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so in everything that I do, just even as a podcast host and as a coach, it all stems from honesty and courage to show up in the work that I do.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I can put on the hat of coach.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I do have a coaching voice, right?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: And and as a podcast host, you have a podcast voice too, right?
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can you can put that on, but at the core of who you are is what's it is your values, right?
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: What what is um the foundation of how you're showing it up as your presence?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: That is what drives a lot of things and how you navigate and engage with your life.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: But you can, you know, like the light switch you mentioned, you can turn, turn an aspect or skill.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think of it like I turn on this skill and then I can turn it off, right?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like I can turn on the skill of being super organized today, and then tomorrow, because it's Saturday, I'm not gonna be super organized.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just laying, but you know, like you know, like it's the same thing of the idea of like being productive.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like people have a persona being really productive, right?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: That is like a hat that you can put on.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I today I'm gonna be productive.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow, I'm gonna take that hat off.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna be productive.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: But at the core of core of how I show up is you know, that the value, the values of that's important to that person.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: It could be like, I just want to be present, you know, that's most important to me.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so being present, meaning you can be present and being productive, you can be present and not being productive, right?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's really coming back to understanding like what's most important to you, the values that are the foundation of who you are and why those are important to you.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can you can put on these different personas, but the core of who you are and how people experience you, that doesn't change.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: That that's that's really important.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: I like the uh the teacher voice example that you gave.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, shout out to my own mom, uh, who is a teacher for for a lot of years.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, her teacher voice is is pretty impressive, and you don't want to mess with it.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's not quite as as strong as her mom voice, but uh it's way, way worse than her grandma voice.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: In any case, uh but really same person, right?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Same person, same attitude, same, same everything.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: And yet, you know, just like putting on a hat doesn't change who you are.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I I love wearing hats, uh, it it does portray a different part of you.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: So that that makes it makes a lot of sense.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: And and yeah, reconciles the difference between have you know doing a particular task or being a particular facet of yourself while also being completely in line with you know who you are all day long every day.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: There was a there was a piece of kind of wordplay that that you had um that you know I I want to give you the credit for.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um you took the tagline of this show, which is maximizing value, and you and you flipped it around.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: You said the the work that you do with your clients is really about values, plural, of course, and value-aligned decision making.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so when when I heard that, I'm like, that that's really what a good exit plan is about.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because business owners have to figure out what they value, and then only after that can they make decisions that are aligned with maximizing those values in an exit.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: So so again, background to maximizing value.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: So bringing that back to you though, you you've said two top values are honesty and courage.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: And why is why why did you pick those two?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: And how do you help a client get to the level of clarity about their own values, especially when a lot of people don't ask themselves that question?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, a lot of people don't ask themselves that question.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's very common, like when we when clients come to work with me, you know, that's the that's one of the first things we talk about, you know.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: I just had just had a conversation with a client this morning is like, what's most important here about this, you know, job search that you're going through, right?
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so because and the reason why I chose, you know, for me, honesty and courage, it's really um from looking and self-reflecting and introspecting in on my own life and um my own experiences and reflecting of how I showed up through those experiences.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: And what I've landed on, you know, um is is that honesty has been at the core how I've navigated through all my life experiences.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just honesty, you know, it's honesty with myself first, right?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Being honest with myself of my own emotions, how I think about, you know, the experiences I'm going through.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then honesty with other people that are involved, right?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I have a family, I have a husband, I have kids, you know, I have to be honest with them also about what I'm experiencing because they are part of my story and my experience.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's honesty with myself and with others.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that really drives my work as a coach because if I can't show up with honesty with the people that I work with, then um it it limits our ability to like to see what the possibilities are or even to explore the um the growth and the evolution of oneself, right?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, and then courage is one of those things also I landed on in self-reflecting is like it took a lot of my own courage.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know it at the time.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: I just realized it like takes a lot of courage.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: I had to practice exercising courage with every decision, every action that I've taken in my whole entire life, right?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it's also courage to to self-reflect, it's courage to like be with my emotions, it's courage to make the decisions to shift my business throughout these last five years, right?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it's, you know, for your clientele, it's the courage to make the decision to exit, right?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so um that's how those honesty and courage are my two primary values that drive a lot of my decisions.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, for example, like right now, it's the courage to, you know, not listen to, you know, what most business um, you know, uh business coaches would say about like pricing your services to trusting, having the courage to trust what I know what is best for my own business and my clients, right?
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm in that process right now of a dis of a decision for my business.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and there's trusting my strategy too.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so like that takes courage and that takes honesty with myself.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: So like bringing it back to like max value, right, for um business owners and entrepreneurs who are thinking about an exit plan.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, what are those values that are driving your consideration to exit your business?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because then that that you know, understanding and have a solid grounding and foundation of what why you're doing that and the values that's driving that, it alleviates some of that anxiety or and I won't say there won't be any anxiety at all or stress.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: But that's where the courage comes in.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's where the courage comes in.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: But when you know the reason for why you're doing that and where why it's grounded, what values it's grounded in, then it makes it more easeful and you there's more um, you know, trusting in yourself of making those decisions for your business.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, and no, uh thank you very much for saying that and bringing it back around like that because that that that's exactly it, right?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Is you when you know the parameters, i.e., your values, you can make good, clean decisions, you can be decisive.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: You can say, Great, uh an exit now makes sense, and exit this way makes sense to be in line with my values and let's do it and just and just move forward, or not, right?
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because they're you know, we're gonna do something else.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um the hardest when people don't have that clarity.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about that real quick.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, what how do you help somebody dive in and have the courage to dive in on their values, understand what it is that is most important to them, you know, again, giving them the parameters around their decision making.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I like to I use this phrase, let's mine for data.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: So you're a numbers guy.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm a data person.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: And when I mean by data person, I like looking at numbers, I love looking at charts, I love a Google spreadsheet, y'all.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: I love a Google spreadsheet, right?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like, um, but when in coaching, when we say mine for data, because sometimes when I ask um clients like what's most important, what are your values?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like, like you said, for most people, we don't take the time to think about that.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes it's like, I don't know, right?
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: A great exercise that you can even do for yourself is look into your past experiences.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I mean for mind for data, right?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Look into your past experiences.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: How did you navigate through those past experiences?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: And what was what did you notice about how you showed up through those through those experiences, how you got through those experiences, what was most important in that time?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's easier to look back and self-reflect, right?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because you can, in hindsight, right?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: We always say, in hindsight, I wish I knew.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great start.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, in hindsight, what do you wish you knew?
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: What did you learn?
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like those are some key questions here.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what did you learn here?
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's data.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: So we're using utilizing that data to understand what's important here.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'll give you an example from you know, um, a client I recently worked with.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: So we are looking at like they've gone through several bouts of burnout, and we looked at, you know, well, what are the things that led to the burnout?
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: But then also what were the things that you really enjoyed in that work, right?
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so that helps us understand okay, what was really important to you during those times.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, where you are at now, looking back, what's important to you now?
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that discussion helps us really clarify what's what are they valuing at this season?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: And values can shift throughout different seasons of life, and that's okay, right?
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: The important thing is taking time to sit down and mind for that data and to understand like yourself and what's important to you.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's those are the exercises I like to do with my clients when they're like, I don't know what my values are right now, right?
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, no, and that that's that that that that's exactly right.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, in the in the context of a business or you know, a business exit, you know, it an exit is really about a person or people, not the business.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: So the the the business is you know the the the money engine, if you will.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, a lot of a lot of owners arrive at that season of their of their lives, um, not thinking about their lives and not thinking about themselves as much as they ought to be.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, they think about it like it's a financial transaction, and you know, all these feelings are you know a problem to get over.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not really that's not it.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's a life decision that you know has a financial transaction embedded in it.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, that that question really that I wish financial planners of of all kinds, you know, would ask more often and be more pointed about is hey, what is retirement or what does exit really mean for you?
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: What do you value right now?
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because it's it you're you're right.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's not the same thing.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh as as what you had before when I started my business, my needs, my values were slightly different.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, not my core values, you know, not you know, not integrity and and uh and courage and those sorts of things.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: However, um, you know, what I place emphasis on, like being able to go to, you know, the kids' hockey games, that kind of thing, that didn't exist then, uh, but it does now.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, the the whole conversation around, you know, exiting a business and retirement is really way more than just about the odds that, hey, you're I'm gonna run out of money before I die, um, which is obviously a bad thing.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously it's never not about the money, as I said.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um but you know, the the exit process needs to be about much more than that.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: It needs to be needs to free you up, you know.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um or you may feel like you did it wrong.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, the the the answer isn't a better multiple.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: Or at least again, not only a better multiple for your part.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Podcast and also my podcast.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot of the overlap uh in in audience and in theme is about working parents and often working moms who are you know who who may be running businesses.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: And your show's mission is to share diverse stories of motherhood so that they can feel seen and heard and understood.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of the a lot of your guests are business owners.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: So what is one of the most common things you hear from those women about the role of business owners stacking on top of the role of being a parent?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's very nuanced, right?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um being a business owner can be all-encompassing in terms of time and energy.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: And what I've been, and you know, what I've been learning actually from my guests who are business owners is their journey of, well, one, first going back to the values, what is their reason why they became a business owner?
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, what and the why is important because it's what keeps them driven in continuing to, you know, either maintain or grow and scale their business.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, the why for their for their work.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: But added on to that, being a mother, there's like a lot of different pieces, moving pieces here.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: And being a business owner, it can it can feel over, you know, encompassing and and taking over other aspects of life.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: But what I've what um, you know, my guests have been really sharing is um I'm going back to the blend aspect, like how they blend their both identities of being a mother and a business owner or entrepreneur, whatever title they choose, right?
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's been, you know, and how they do that is really how how they're integrating their family life into the work that they do, right?
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because it's really um, and that's why it goes back to it's not work-life balance, it's about blending.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: How do we incorporate our family life into the some of the business aspects that we do, right?
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: Bringing, you know, it's here's a tangible thing.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: I know one of my podcast guests is like, you know, bringing along and having their kids be part of some of some of the aspects of the business, right?
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, having the kids or even bringing the family of like sharing what you're working on in the business and things like that.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: So like it's really um because there the struggle is how do you make time for all of it?
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's having acceptance that sometimes you can't be a hundred percent in all of it, and that's okay and that's okay.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where finding your own way of blending things together that works for you, but also like being okay with sometimes the business takes priority at the season, and sometimes family takes priority at the season, and how you know, what are some ways that uh I can keep the business going um and getting creative with that, right?
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because this is the season where I need to be caretaking for my elderly parents, or you know, I have to be here for my family.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so that it's a it's a very unique um experience of being a business owner and and being being a mom at the same time, but it's finding your way, and I say always on your terms, of how to blend these as these two identities together.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: And and there's no no right way.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think you know, every just to bring it back to the business component, I mean, there there's there's a lot of common ways that businesses fail or flounder, but every success is a little bit different.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think that really really speaks to you know the the the the the fact that people are are individuals and they're different, and the um everybody brings a little bit of a different blend of ingredients to the to the table.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um and speaking of blending ingredients, you know, you you said that you know starting a business is a little bit like having a baby, gestation and birth, and a really tough first year with no sleep and you know uncertainty about what you're doing, and then over time the the thing, the business, you know, develops a personality and a rhythm and independence.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I've I'm maybe taking the metaphor kind of too far, but you know, where where does the metaphor really hold and where does it, you know, where does it fall down?
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I I love this metaphor, but I mean, and I'm thinking about like you know, max value, right?
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the work that you do, Ben, it's like, you know, at some point, and if we think about this like in kids, we both have kids, like at some point the the kids go off to college, they go and become grown adults, right?
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: And if we think bring it back to the business, right, some point the business grows to a point where you get to decide what you want to do with it.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to continue scaling it or is it time to exit?
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: And exit could be closing it down, it could be whatever you define exit as for yourself, right?
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: So it's, you know, I I like to say, like, kind of like that's where the metaphor, I mean, continues and also ends, right?
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like there is it, you know, the business grows just like kids grow.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: The first couple of years is so hard.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like, like at the end of, uh, you know, loved it, but also I want to put it away, you know, like and and the same thing with with growing your own business.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: The first couple of years is really hard.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I I would say that for anything too.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, when you're starting a new job, if you're in a W-2 job, like the first couple of years is also hard.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: You're trying to figure out the culture, you're trying to figure out where you your role, you know, and learn the skills and things like that.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually we all evolve, just like your business evolves, and you get to decide how do you feel about where you've where you've evolved to, right?
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: And what do you where do you want to, what do you want to do at that point?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, yeah, I like the metaphor.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's also like it it works, and then it also there is an ending, right?
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: There is there is some form of ending.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the ultimate ending, y'all is we're all gonna end up on the ground, not to be morbid, but like, you know, in terms of a business, you get to decide.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's the the great thing is like you get to decide, you know, even if it's evolved, what do you want to what do you want to do next, right?
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: You can continue to evolve it or you can continue to exit, which I really like the alliteration there because they both start with ease.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: But um, so that's what I would say about that that metaphor and how it relates to us as business owners.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: You'll have to write that down, evolve or exit.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: That that's a good, good uh yeah one.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, thanks for lending us some attention during this episode.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: The podcast name is Max Value.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, definitely maximizing value is a good thing.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: But this conversation with Jocelyn has really flipped the order of the name.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: Know your values first so you can maximize for them.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that is also the purpose behind my firm's exit builder program.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: And exit is about the person and not the business.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: When building towards your exit, you need to start with what's important to you as you transition the business, what does the future look like for you, and what does the future need to look like for the business?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: So start at townadvisory.com or reach out to me directly.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, back to Jocelyn.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: The um well, to your point, I mean, we all it businesses have a life cycle just like humans do, and we all exit our business one way or the other.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: And whether that's you know, because you die in the saddle or you because you, you know, have have you know planned the perfect exit, whatever it is, we're all gonna stop working at some point.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's it's kind of up to us to figure out when and how we want to do that, uh, if if possible.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so now it's time for your value vitamin, the part of the show where we take a real situation a business owner might face and prescribe something for it.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: So here's the situation for you.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: So a working parent running their own business feels constantly busy, but never feels productive.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: So the the strategic work, like exit planning, succession planning, building leverage, taking care of themselves even, uh, and that none of that really gets gets touched.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: They are telling themselves the answer is more efficiency.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: So if a business owner came to you saying, I just need to be more efficient, what is your real diagnosis and what is the prescription you would write?
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I'm gonna come from it from a lens, a coaching lens here.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so a coach never gives advice, but I do help you gain clarity.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the things that I would be curious about is asking this business owner, define for me what efficiency is and what does productivity mean to you?
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then it would be okay, where are these definitions coming from?
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes when we think about efficiency and productivity, 80 more than more common than not, it's usually coming from a societal, you know, programming or a should, right?
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so I really want to get clear on what does efficiency and productivity look like and feel like for them.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I say feel like because we, you know, for uh for people, productivity feels differently for for each and every human being, right?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: And feeling is important because we are emotional beings, and so um those feelings drive our actions too, right?
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: Whether they're responsive actions or reactive actions, right?
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: So that is the first thing I would ask that business owner is like, tell me what does efficiency mean to you and what does productivity mean to you?
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then I would then the next question I would ask them, I said, tell me why you think you need to be doing more.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then it would be going to the values, like, well, what's most important to you right now of how you want to show up as a business owner and in your business?
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: Those are two steps.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: And in your life.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: In in your life, right?
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, like what's most important to you?
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you feel like you need to be more efficient?
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and so, and then there's, I mean, as you can see, there's a lot of questions I would be asking because it would be helping that business owner gain clarity on like their experience.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one of the things is when I hear people like, I feel like I should be doing more.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: I love to ask the question, what are you running towards?
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that that opens a lot of you know, insightful conversation in the session.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: What are you running towards?
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I will more often than not, it's a full stop pause of like, huh, what am I running towards?
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm running, but is it I'm running or away from something?
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, right.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, what are you running towards?
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: Or what are you running away from?
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: Either question, right?
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's those are those are the things, and those are questions you can ask yourself, right?
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so those, you know, like it's just getting curious with yourself, and that's the thing that I invite a lot of, you know, introspection, self-reflection, like give yourself the time to pause and really like sit back, almost like see yourself like an uh as a third person, right?
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: And say, like, what's going on?
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: What's going on here for me?
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: What why am I doing the things that I'm doing?
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: Why am I thinking the things I'm thinking?
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that really drives that self-awareness.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I believe that when you have that self-awareness, you have that agency to take that responsive action for yourself that is aligned with your values and how you want to show up.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: So that makes sense.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: Getting getting clarity on in that case, what efficiency is and what what what it means to you to actually be efficient and productive.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: And productive is is is absolutely crucial.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, you don't know what you're literally what you're doing.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the valuation flavor of the same vitamin might be, you know, spending hours and hours and hours on low value work, you know, stuff that you know doesn't help you build, you know, it's not documenting a process or training a successor or that kind of thing.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's building more around you, um, you know, in terms of uh, you know, requiring that you do the work.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, when you're getting clear on your values first, you're Jocelyn, you're not just giving good life advice, or excuse me, I know you don't give the advice, quote unquote.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: You help people come to their own clarity.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: But I would say that it ends up being good valuation advice for uh in you know, literally increasing the value of their businesses by making it more focused and more effective and more productive and themselves in it.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they they're uh the owner gets to be more leveraged, you know, and it's more valuable at the end of the day to yourself as the business owner as well as a hypothetical future buyer.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: So make you want to make a business that is good to run.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: So do that so somebody will actually want to buy it.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: You're you're maximizing your own value, your own value, right?
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: As a as as a you know, holistic holistically as a person, right?
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: But which which extends into your business.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, we're playing on words here, Ben.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, it's yeah, it's both play and you know and deadly serious.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, exactly the show up and be valuable, period.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: So to kind of wrap up, I always like to ask a little bit about you.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, tell me something that's not on your LinkedIn profile or your or your website, whatever.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, um, what's not on my LinkedIn profile, but I think people do know is uh I mean, I love to hug a tree.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I literally like, and that's a newfound thing for me.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm an you know, I love being out in nature.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I mean, you guys you could call me a tree or but my favorite tree is a redwood.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: And literally yesterday I took my friend out and I'm like, we're gonna go on this trail because I'm gonna take you to my favorite tree and we're gonna hug the tree.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna hug this big old redwood tree.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: That is something that people are like, what, Jopla?
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like that's you know, um, so that's something that I, you know, I don't put on my LinkedIn profile, um, maybe because, you know, there's this story I tell myself, like, oh, they think that's really woo or whatever.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that is something that, you know, people really don't know about me.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the other thing is also I'm very like spiritual.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: I love like learning about spirituality and all the things.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: I am a person who loves to try all these things just to have that experience.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's that's that's a core piece of of of me.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I don't share that much about that on LinkedIn.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that is the other thing that people don't know about me.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you for sharing.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I love the I I love being out in nature as well.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: Redwood trees are incredibly special.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I don't hug them very much because there's you know, there's a lot of the ants and stuff on it.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you get you get nature on you more that way.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's maybe not my goal, but at the same time, yeah, man.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we we're we're in such a such a cool place in the world, you know, to have um yeah, just living history all around us.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, access to it.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: One of the one of the ways that people uh improve themselves is through reading, you know, or what what are you reading now?
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: I I I am a person that likes to like read multiple things at a time.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right now, um, one book I am reading is called Build a Life That You Want, um by I think it's Arthur Brooks and Oprah Winfree.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that it's like creating a life of uh happier, creating more ultimate, more happiness, how to become happier, right?
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that is a really great book.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um been like post noting it almost every three pages.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then there is um another book.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: I can't think of it right now.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's on my Kindle, but it's oh, I've been reading a books about signs and um by Laura Lynn Jackson.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: She's a psychic medium, but this is the spirituality aspect of like, you know, how the universe gives you signs and you know, people who you've loved who's past, they give you signs, and I find that so fascinating.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so that's that's another book that I just recently finished.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: I highly recommend it.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, signs and then living, she also wrote uh Living an Illuminated Life.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's her most recent book.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: So those are the books that I've been reading and are reading right now.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: Gotcha.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, thank you.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so last, you know, the you have the podcast, The Empowered Working Mom Revolution, which uh I I think I think it's on the seventh season.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: Is that right?
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're launching next week.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: Seventh season.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: So everybody check that out.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, where where can they find that and where can they find you if you want to be found?
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you can find me on LinkedIn.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: Just search up Jocelyn Al Young coach, all one word.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: Al Young is spelled A-U-Y-E-U-N-G.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how I my last name is spelled.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: So you can find me on there on LinkedIn.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you can find my podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, one of our goals this year is to hope to hit our hundredth episode by the end of our calendar year.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll we'll see.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: So we're open for that.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I'm excited for our seventh season to launch next week.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: We have some amazing stories, and then we're working on our eighth season, which we're shifting kind of our format to talk about certain topics with with moms that are um the experts in those fields.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: So um I'm excited for our upcoming seasons.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so check us out on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and connect with me on LinkedIn.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Jocelyn, thank you so much for joining us.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: It it really has been a lot of fun.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I I I've loved the love the topic and the the word play.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I do think our listeners have uh come away with something that they they didn't have uh before they uh push play on the on the video.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah all right, appreciate you very much.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, Ben.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's a wrap.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: You've been listening to Max Value Podcast.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: And if this episode provided any interesting information, hit that subscribe button, smash like, and drop a comment below.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Ben Town with Town Advisory, and I'll catch you next time.