📣 How to Tell a New Story & Change the Trajectory of Your Work — with Akua Nyame-Mensah

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:00:27.310):
Hello, hello, and welcome to the Off the Grid Clubhouse.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:00:32.738):
I am your host,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:00:33.739):
Amelia Ruby,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:00:34.761):
and this is the private podcast feed for friends and fans of Off the Grid podcast.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:00:41.991):
Our public show is on break this month.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:00:44.614):
But I decided to do a very special series here in the clubhouse where I am sharing

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:00:50.757):
three conversations to help us all refresh for the rest of 2025.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:00:57.300):
And in this episode, change the story that we're telling about this year.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:01:02.962):
This series also coincides with a month that I've been calling Anti-Paywall August,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:01:08.588):
which has just meant that I have taken the paywall off these new episodes so that

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:01:14.755):
everyone here can hear them and hopefully decide to upgrade to become a paid

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subscriber of The Clubhouse this month.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:01:23.824):
So I am a smart,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:01:25.986):
savvy business owner,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:01:27.227):
and I know that there is a lot that goes into the paywall economics of a platform

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:01:33.472):
like Substack.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:01:35.213):
And honestly,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:01:36.334):
instead of trying to learn to game the paywall and succeed at Substack,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:01:41.498):
what I wanted to do this month was operate from a place of radical generosity and

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:01:46.822):
give you my very best work,

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the very best episodes I have to offer for free.

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and lean into the trust fall of you listening to them, enjoying them.

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And then if you have the means deciding to support this work by becoming a paid

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subscriber,

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it's only $5 a month or $50 a year.

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And I hope that at some point in your journey with Off the Grid,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:02:13.926):
you have gotten a piece of business advice or had a light bulb moment that

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that has definitely been worth $5 or even $50 to you and that you will take this

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opportunity right now to pay that back and forward by upgrading to a paid

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subscription.

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If you are already a paid subscriber, thank you.

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I appreciate you so much.

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Your support of the show and of me here in the clubhouse is the difference between

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off the grid making more episodes and not making more episodes.

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This show takes a lot of work and life and labor and love to create,

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and that means it needs some reciprocity.

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That means it has to be supported by listeners.

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So thank you to those of you who already support the show.

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Thank you to those of you who are deciding to support the show right now and

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:03:09.488):
upgrading to paid as you listen to me say all of this to you.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:03:13.830):
And while you do that, let me tell you a little bit about today's guest.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:03:19.432):
Akia Nyame Mensah is a certified executive coach,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:03:22.935):
leadership and culture advisor,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:03:24.896):
speaker,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:03:25.697):
host of the Open Doors Conversations podcast,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:03:28.419):
and the convener of a monthly roundtable called People Before Strategy.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:03:32.902):
As a former startup executive with more than eight years of coaching and

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:03:36.444):
facilitation experience,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:03:38.146):
her insights are grounded in real-world leadership.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:03:41.628):
Akui has lived and worked in the U.S.,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:03:43.529):
Nigeria,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:03:44.209):
Ghana,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:03:44.669):
Kenya,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:03:45.170):
and South Africa,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:03:46.790):
and she supports leaders to pivot,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:03:48.371):
be flexible,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:03:49.111):
and adapt to an ever-changing world.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:03:52.053):
In this conversation, we talk a lot about the power of self-coaching, the

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:03:59.216):
challenging realities of 2025 in small business,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:03.418):
how to move from a reactive space into a more reflective mindset that allows you to

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:10.021):
act with agency,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:11.282):
and how to change the narrative about this year so that you can acknowledge any

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:16.804):
challenges you might be facing.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:18.765):
You can look at reality with open eyes,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:21.847):
but also perhaps shift the trajectory from where you think 2025 might have been

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:27.850):
headed to

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:28.510):
to where you actually would like it to go.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:30.854):
I loved this conversation with Aquia,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:33.217):
and I'm so thrilled to be bringing it here to you in the clubhouse.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:37.323):
Let's go ahead and dive on in.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:41.551):
Hi, Akua.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:42.412):
Welcome to Off the Grid.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:04:44.213):
Thank you so much for having me.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:45.814):
Really excited.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:47.275):
I'm so thrilled to have you.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:48.496):
You have some really great frameworks for thinking about how we can move from

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:52.799):
reactive to reflective in our work,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:04:56.642):
and also how we can sort of change the stories we're telling about

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:01.585):
our work and our lives.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:03.286):
And,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:03.867):
you know,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:05.208):
this year,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:06.449):
this summer,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:08.010):
I've been telling a story about how hard it is to be in business and what a

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:12.173):
challenging year it is.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:13.854):
And I think that's very true.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:15.315):
There's a lot of evidence for that in my personal life and the world at large,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:18.197):
so I'm not denying it.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:20.018):
But I've started to have this sneaking suspicion that

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:23.621):
the story I'm telling isn't really serving me anymore and actually like sort of

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:29.605):
keeping me stuck in that story.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:31.207):
And if I could perhaps tell a different story or shift my perspective a bit,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:35.229):
I could change my relationship to my business and what I think is possible in 2025,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:38.992):
2026 and beyond.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:43.695):
So, all of that context sort of sets.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:46.937):
Like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:47.097):
I'm really excited to talk to you today about shifting our perspective,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:51.720):
changing the stories we tell.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:53.881):
And to help listeners get to know you a bit, I wanted to kind of invite you...

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:05:58.664):
Thank you so much for joining us today.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:06:22.563):
Yes.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:06:23.564):
And as we were having a conversation about what we're going to talk about today,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:06:27.826):
I mentioned,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:06:28.967):
oh,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:06:29.147):
I've just updated it.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:06:30.188):
I took the S off of transformations and add organizational.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:06:34.250):
And so it's been a journey since sort of starting my own business.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:06:38.973):
It's not something I ever wanted to do, not something I ever thought I would do.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:06:43.276):
And it's something I sort of felt like I just fell into because I had to.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:06:46.978):
I was so frustrated with finding other opportunities to work full time for other people.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:06:52.575):
And I think a bit of it comes from the fact that I initially started with coaching

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:06:58.282):
and how I didn't want to be labeled just a coach.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:07:02.287):
I think there's so many misconceptions about coaching, what a coach does, the value a coach has.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:07:08.595):
And so one of the reasons why I sort of

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:07:12.139):
especially at the beginning of my business journey, got a bit obsessed about titles.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:07:17.462):
And if anything, I would say actually it even limited me in a way.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:07:20.744):
I felt like I couldn't put myself out there until I had the right title.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:07:24.947):
And I would say now it's the opposite, like I'm just constantly changing it.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:07:29.710):
I will say I think I've had leadership and culture advisor for a while.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:07:33.988):
But, you know, prior to that, would refer to myself, I think, as a people advisor.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:07:39.271):
And then I just pretty much talked about myself as a leadership and executive coach.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:07:44.234):
My title changes as I've realized that people do respond very differently to titles.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:07:52.099):
And I

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:07:53.553):
your titles can limit you, I guess, in some ways.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:07:56.375):
And I do a lot more than just coaching.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:07:58.716):
And so I kind of wanted my title to reflect that.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:08:02.559):
And as I have a better understanding of how people maybe respond to my title,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:08:08.783):
that's kind of how I also evolve it.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:08:11.565):
But yeah, I would say, yeah, a title...

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:08:14.927):
is important, but also isn't at the same time.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:08:17.850):
So it's,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:08:18.130):
I think,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:08:18.350):
this really interesting dynamic that I'm constantly also struggling with,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:08:22.695):
but then also sometimes feel like I win the war against titles.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:08:26.558):
And then other times I'm like, no, I'm evolving and what I'm capable of doing has evolved.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:08:32.464):
So right now I would say the rationale is that I'm trying to get into doing more

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:08:36.798):
long-term work with not just one leader but a leader and their immediate team which

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:08:44.182):
is why i sort of prefer the word advisor and why at least the word advisor i don't

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:08:48.184):
think is going to change anytime soon so yeah that's kind of where i am in my

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:08:52.306):
journey

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:08:53.687):
I'm so fascinated by so many things that you said that I just want to like double

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:08:58.111):
click on before we move on.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:09:00.713):
First, that you didn't really set out to start a business.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:09:04.936):
You sort of found your way into business.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:09:08.259):
And, you know, so often I will talk about business as like a calling or a

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:09:16.005):
And I had to figure out what the business was.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:09:17.526):
But being a small business owner was important to me.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:09:20.927):
It is important to me.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:09:22.047):
And I've talked on the show about how I'm so committed to staying self-employed and

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:09:26.269):
figuring that out.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:09:27.749):
But I think there are so many listeners where that is not the case.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:09:31.150):
So many people find their way into self-employment because they

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:09:35.832):
Something about the existing work systems doesn't work for them.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:09:40.197):
And it could be that just the jobs aren't the right fit or like what you want to do

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:09:43.601):
isn't out there.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:09:44.522):
And so I'm grateful you're here to sort of come from that perspective.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:09:47.606):
For the people who ever listen to me talk about small business and they're like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:09:50.409):
Amelia,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:09:50.669):
this was not my quote unquote calling.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:09:52.872):
Yeah.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:09:54.433):
It can also just be something that serves the moment that you're in in life or

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:09:58.237):
becomes necessitated by the conditions of your life.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:10:02.100):
And I want Off the Grid to be here for people in that position as well as they're

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:10:05.784):
trying to figure it out.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:10:07.259):
I really love how you put that.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:10:08.740):
And I would say I very much was not ever expecting to work for myself.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:10:15.125):
So my background is actually working for high growth startups and specifically

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:10:18.547):
startups that would scale with technology.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:10:20.548):
So the idea of having a small business is actually the opposite,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:10:24.771):
I think,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:10:25.132):
of what most people would expect me to be in because I came from literally running

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:10:29.815):
classified platforms.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:10:31.636):
So starting my practice,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:10:33.758):
my coaching consulting practice,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:10:35.100):
honestly,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:10:35.660):
was because of frustration,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:10:38.143):
not because I couldn't find opportunities.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:10:40.485):
If anything, I think I was quite privileged and really lucky.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:10:43.488):
I came from a really great background because I was a startup executive.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:10:47.031):
And luckily,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:10:47.912):
the particular group I worked for actually ended up being listed on the New York

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:10:51.416):
Stock Exchange.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:10:52.837):
And so I had the opportunity to experience it from launch.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:10:55.739):
So I actually got to launch it in Ghana.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:10:57.720):
I took over the same platform in a different country.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:11:00.281):
So in Nigeria.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:11:01.342):
And then so after launching,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:11:04.263):
being able to take over another platform,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:11:06.364):
you know,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:11:07.185):
having to manage the two.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:11:09.526):
Ultimately, it was actually sold to competitors.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:11:11.987):
So within the space of about five years,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:11:14.608):
I got to experience almost the complete life cycle of a company.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:11:19.470):
And having gone through that in such an accelerated pace,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:11:24.272):
I was like,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:11:24.753):
wow,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:11:25.133):
I've been able to experience a lot of what most people can only experience in maybe

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:11:29.114):
50 years now.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:11:30.675):
So I think I'm good.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:11:32.195):
I think I've seen a lot.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:11:34.356):
I've experienced a lot, you know.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:11:36.297):
And then when I left because they had sold the platforms to another business,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:11:41.818):
I found another opportunity,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:11:43.298):
but it wasn't a good fit.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:11:44.979):
I think because I ended up doing a coaching credential that

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:11:49.660):
I already was someone who had really strong boundaries and was really clear on what

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:11:54.482):
was important to me.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:11:55.923):
And I think I got even more comfortable advocating for myself afterwards.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:12:01.565):
And because of sort of the trajectory I was on,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:12:04.566):
you know,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:12:04.806):
the types of opportunities that would come my way were more likely to be general

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:12:08.388):
management,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:12:09.608):
which at the time I didn't realize how much of an impact it had on me.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:12:15.049):
You know,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:12:15.610):
I think I was at that particular opportunity maybe for about six months and I was

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:12:19.153):
just like,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:12:19.514):
nope,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:12:19.834):
I think I'm going to go.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:12:20.835):
And I had no backup plan.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:12:22.437):
And so after leaving,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:12:23.978):
I was like,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:12:25.259):
hmm,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:12:25.740):
I'm very marketable,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:12:26.961):
but I spent all this money on this coaching credential.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:12:29.524):
What would it take?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:12:30.965):
to build a business based on this.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:12:34.228):
And that's how I've ended up where I am, I guess, eight years later.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:12:37.792):
It's definitely not where I expected myself to be, but I'm really happy to be here.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:12:42.556):
Yes, and I think a much better human because of it, for sure.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:12:46.033):
I just love talking to coaches because they essentially, you essentially do my job for me.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:12:51.578):
You're just like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:12:51.958):
let me just like peel back every layer of this onion and tell you my motivations,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:12:56.922):
my desires,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:12:58.604):
where I realized things were out of alignment.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:00.766):
Like, I love it.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:01.626):
It's so fun.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:02.387):
And also, I think it's like a little on theme with this conversation, right?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:05.590):
Because you're like telling me this story and we're also going to talk about how to

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:08.652):
change the stories we're telling about different things.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:10.934):
And I'm sure at different times there were

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:12.936):
different stories you were telling about all of those events.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:15.338):
And with, you know, more hindsight or shifts, you've been able to shift those narratives.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:19.602):
But I love hearing the added context that you essentially had a whole career in

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:24.767):
five years,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:25.568):
which is wild.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:26.589):
And I can understand why you'd want to change the pace.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:29.932):
And also just really hearing you on the self-discovery that happened through your

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:35.177):
coach training and that program and

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:38.380):
And I just really have like the utmost respect for your commitment then to not just

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:44.650):
like repressing all of those realizations and continuing on the path you had been

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:48.997):
on,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:49.097):
but actually allowing them to surface and actually changing directions as a result.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:52.262):
Because

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:53.303):
I think that that type of process and like resilience in that process is what makes

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:13:58.407):
for good small business owners.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:14:00.569):
It's just a trait that I see over and over again.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:14:03.191):
Whether somebody like yourself sort of ended up starting a small business,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:14:07.094):
even though that wasn't the plan,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:14:08.656):
or for someone like me who like really wanted that all along,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:14:11.478):
like there is still this commitment to self and commitment to meeting ourselves

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:14:16.322):
where we are and making our work work.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:14:19.244):
look how it needs to look for us that I just see over and over again.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:14:22.245):
And everybody I talk to who builds a sustainable small business.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:14:26.687):
So, so much has come up already.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:14:30.689):
I want to sort of go into one of the first things I mentioned we might talk about

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:14:36.411):
today,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:14:36.971):
which is the shift from reactive to reflective.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:14:41.033):
So,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:14:41.934):
I have noticed that I used to be a lot of a planner.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:14:44.979):
I built a lot of structure into my business.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:14:47.963):
I would make a plan at the start of every year.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:14:50.367):
I would try to...

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:14:53.442):
decide what I was going to do in advance and then execute on it,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:14:56.024):
I suppose,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:14:56.684):
is one way to describe that.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:14:58.145):
But this year, 2025, has stymied every plan that I have made.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:05.289):
And I've really noticed myself slip into a very reactive mode.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:10.472):
Like every day,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:11.152):
it's just like I log on,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:12.033):
I open my inbox,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:12.753):
I see what's happening,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:13.473):
I panic,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:13.954):
and then I try to do some stuff.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:15.415):
And

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:16.375):
And that's not my normal MO.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:18.397):
I don't like to function that way.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:20.198):
And I know that it's not like it doesn't feel good.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:23.680):
And I also don't think it's a very good like model for leadership or small business.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:27.623):
So I know this is like one of the pillars of what you coach and work around,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:31.305):
which is helping leaders move from reactive to reflective.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:34.147):
So could you share like what that means to you,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:37.809):
how you guide folks through that shift and also like any ways you can help me get

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:15:43.413):
from reactive to reflective today?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:15:46.555):
Yes, definitely.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:15:48.135):
And I think a lot of what you shared really resonates with me.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:15:51.196):
I would say that this is probably going to be one of my worst years in business.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:15:54.716):
I've been doing this for about eight years.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:15:56.317):
And so this is probably going to be, revenue-wise, one of my worst years in business.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:16:01.258):
And that's, I think, such an interesting thing to acknowledge.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:16:04.878):
But I think that's kind of going to be the reality.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:16:07.259):
We'll see.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:16:07.759):
We're only halfway through.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:16:09.139):
But very similar to you, I'm someone who plans, who likes to have things set up, had...

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:16:15.720):
Yeah.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:16:15.920):
Yeah.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:16:16.020):
Yeah.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:16:16.181):
Yeah.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:16:35.845):
And I would say,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:16:36.686):
I guess,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:16:37.266):
sort of similar to you,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:16:38.607):
a piece of it really starts with recognizing this is something that I'm sort of

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:16:44.230):
telling myself.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:16:45.131):
So the way it sort of came up for me was predicting and very specifically sort of

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:16:50.254):
predicting what the outcome would be of conversations I was having related to

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:16:53.956):
business development.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:16:55.558):
I was sort of telling myself that what's the use?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:16:58.039):
They're not going to have the budget.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:16:59.300):
They're not going to want to invest in me.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:17:01.221):
They're going to want something really small and try and tell me that I'm really

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:17:04.765):
expensive or tell me that they're going with somebody else.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:17:08.068):
So why should I even bother sort of reaching out?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:17:10.470):
Why should I even bother doing business development was sort of the story I started

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:17:14.975):
to tell myself.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:17:16.796):
And I really noticed that this was sort of limiting my ability to have

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:17:23.541):
conversations,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:17:24.782):
my ability to do business development.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:17:28.625):
And a piece of it, I think for me, sort of came from keeping track of some of my thoughts.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:17:34.609):
And so one of the things I sort of do,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:17:37.451):
and this might be a bit extreme,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:17:39.393):
so definitely won't work for everyone,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:17:41.074):
but

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:17:41.474):
necessarily.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:17:42.855):
But I kind of keep track of all of my tasks.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:17:45.897):
I have like this really cool sort of built out notion system that I got some help

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:17:50.041):
with building over the last few years.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:17:52.122):
And I started looking at what I was doing with my time.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:17:55.084):
So previously, I would do a time audit.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:17:57.046):
And now if this system, I don't have to do a time audit, I can just go through and

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:18:01.303):
see the tasks that I ended up putting into this task system.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:18:04.104):
And it was really clear to me that I was not doing many business development or marketing tasks.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:18:11.005):
And as a small business, the majority of my work is relationship based.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:18:17.246):
Well,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:18:17.446):
actually,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:18:17.686):
100% of my work is relationship based,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:18:19.427):
and the majority of it is definitely referral based.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:18:22.447):
And I also realized that

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:18:27.037):
a lot of my work,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:18:27.818):
and this is something I've realized for the last few years,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:18:30.039):
is actually subcontracting work where I don't own the client as well.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:18:33.861):
And so I sort of started to identify these risks, these threats, sort of using that tool.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:18:39.925):
So that's sometimes one way to sort of help you reflect on what's potentially happening.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:18:46.989):
Like, is there data that you collect?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:18:49.151):
Is there a way that you keep track of what you do?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:18:52.933):
And at one point in time, do you sort of create space where

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:18:56.335):
Do you have a routine or ritual going through that and sort of trying to see or

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:19:01.841):
piece together what those individual pieces of data maybe add up to?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:19:07.368):
So that's one way potentially of recognizing it.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:19:11.312):
And for me, that was one thing that was really helpful to help me.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:19:17.540):
get that awareness, and then make a decision that I want to do something different.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:19:23.625):
Make a decision around, hey, maybe I can show up differently.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:19:27.308):
I don't have control over whether or not someone does decide to work with me,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:19:31.372):
but that doesn't mean that I should stop reaching out,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:19:33.974):
that I shouldn't stop trying to build connections.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:19:37.837):
And what I decided to do was sort of set,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:19:40.619):
I guess,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:19:41.060):
a new path for myself or set a new expectation that,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:19:44.022):
It wasn't even about this year that rather than trying to make up for this year or

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:19:49.845):
trying to do better this year,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:19:52.286):
I was just going to focus on having conversations and think about next year.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:19:56.908):
And so for me,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:19:58.608):
what that looks like is I'm someone who loves to come up with like really fun

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:20:03.010):
project names and like really fun ways of trying to motivate myself to do things

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:20:06.952):
that are maybe a little bit outside my comfort zone or that require me to sort of

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:20:10.974):
switch some of these stories I'm telling myself.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:20:13.675):
And so one came up with a sort of mantra or affirmation,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:20:18.618):
like don't predict is sort of one thing to help sort of help shift my mind around.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:20:23.500):
Oh, I'm going to this conversation, but it's not going to go my way.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:20:25.881):
Just remind myself, don't predict.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:20:27.882):
And then the other piece is remind myself that it's not about like winning or losing.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:20:32.225):
It's not even about trying to get business for today.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:20:34.626):
It's about building genuine relationships into next year,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:20:39.188):
because ultimately,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:20:40.169):
as it relates to how I do business and

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:20:42.990):
Typically, the decision making time, it's usually six months to a year.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:20:47.014):
I have people who come back three years after maybe seeing me do something and say,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:20:50.658):
hey,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:20:51.079):
can you do this work with me and my team?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:20:53.021):
And so that's just the reality also of the type of business I run.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:20:57.005):
And so

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:20:58.326):
Having your own processes to reflect, right?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:21:03.710):
And once again, it's gonna look different for different people.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:21:06.132):
So for some people, maybe you're someone who likes to write things out.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:21:09.254):
And so maybe going back, seeing what you've been writing over time, what's working for you?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:21:12.977):
What isn't working for you?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:21:13.937):
Are there any trends?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:21:14.838):
Are there any patterns?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:21:16.579):
For someone who's maybe a little bit more,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:21:18.820):
you know,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:21:20):
systems oriented,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:21:21.061):
has some sort of task management,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:21:22.881):
project management system,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:21:24.182):
go back into that.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:21:25.462):
See where you're spending your time and energy.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:21:27.383):
What's giving you time, you know, or what's giving you energy?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:21:30.684):
And if you do have the resources or you do have someone that can,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:21:33.705):
you know,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:21:33.945):
potentially listen to you,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:21:35.986):
maybe mirror something back,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:21:37.986):
help you reflect,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:21:39.447):
I think having that space as well can be really,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:21:41.568):
really helpful too.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:21:43.208):
Yeah,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:21:44.068):
the way you just walked us through your experience has given me a sort of light

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:21:49.250):
bulb moment in how I was even thinking about like this conversation and this

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:21:52.972):
process.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:21:53.392):
Because in my head, I'm like, oh, moving from reactive to reflective is one thing.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:21:59.274):
And then changing the story is another thing.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:02.235):
And what I feel like you just modeled for me and for us is that actually changing

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:06.597):
the story is one piece of how we really make that transition.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:09.918):
Yeah.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:10.658):
What you just helped me realize is it's actually all the same process.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:14.079):
And there's sort of like a flow that we move through.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:16.520):
Like a story is a big part of what arrives when we become reflective and we can

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:20.722):
start to realize what the story is.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:23.583):
And I also noticed in what you shared,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:25.664):
like you not just changed the story,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:28.005):
but you changed a few things.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:28.985):
Like you changed the stakes, right?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:30.666):
For every conversation you were having,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:32.108):
you change the timeline for what you expected would come of those conversations.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:36.032):
And you change the story that you were telling around what might happen.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:40.196):
So in,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:41.397):
you know,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:41.657):
going into a conversation with a potential future client,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:45.081):
instead of telling that story of like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:47.063):
they're not going to want to do a full engagement or like they don't have any

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:50.406):
money,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:51.047):
which I mean...

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:52.128):
I have definitely found myself like going on to a discovery call being like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:56.211):
I don't think this person is going to have money to spend with me.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:58.373):
And like, why am I telling that story?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:22:59.774):
Like, that's about me, not about the person at all.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:01.976):
That's about the story I'm telling.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:03.377):
So realizing that and then shifting like, okay, why have I set the stakes so high for this call?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:10.302):
Like, especially if you're doing a discovery call for my business, like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:14.005):
It's truly just about discovering things.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:16.386):
It's not even like the stakes can stay pretty low there.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:19.366):
We're trying to get to know each other, trying to understand what somebody even wants.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:22.487):
Like for a discovery call for me, I'm not even at the proposal level.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:25.388):
It's not actually a sales engagement yet.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:29.089):
Changing the stakes,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:29.789):
changing the timeline,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:31.009):
because I definitely sometimes when I've done this work in the past,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:33.810):
I've realized that like when I don't walk away from the call with like a contract

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:37.671):
in hand,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:38.411):
I'm like upset about it,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:39.531):
even though I never offered a contract like it was never going to happen.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:43.550):
I'm like, the contract doesn't come for months.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:45.711):
But I have upset myself by not walking away from the call having made money,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:49.914):
even though I always knew that wasn't going to happen.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:52.155):
I knew it would take longer.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:53.155):
So there's these sort of really funny conclusions we draw or expectations we set in

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:23:59.499):
our own minds that can then lead us into these pretty negative mindsets around our

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:24:05.562):
work.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:24:06.123):
And that was the other piece coming up for me while you were sharing was like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:24:08.744):
You know, I consider myself a pretty smart person and a pretty self-reflective person.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:24:13.728):
So I often will be like, I don't need a coach.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:24:17.291):
I can just figure this out myself,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:24:19.073):
which there's some hubris in that,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:24:20.714):
just calling myself in on it because I cannot see myself as clearly as other people

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:24:27.800):
can see me sometimes.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:24:29.501):
And I understand there is a lot of like healthy skepticism in the world about

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:24:34.485):
coaches because there are a lot of scammy coaches out there.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:24:37.007):
Like that's very real.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:24:38.883):
And also,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:24:39.844):
we all need those sacred and strategic mirrors of other people who can do exactly

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:24:47.691):
what you were just saying.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:24:49.372):
Listen to us talk and reflect something back.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:24:51.774):
Share that they noticed we've said something a few times.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:24:54.236):
Share that they've noticed.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:24:55.377):
I literally was just talking to my friend Taylor yesterday in voice messages,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:24:59.301):
and she sent me a very lovely message.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:25:02.143):
text after she listened to my message.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:25:03.645):
And she was like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:25:04.325):
I just want to remind you that you have a lot of power here and you seem to be

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:25:07.868):
totally diminishing yourself.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:25:09.510):
And I was like... Love that.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:25:12.632):
Yes.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:25:13.293):
She both heard what I was saying,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:25:15.335):
saw the truth from her perspective,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:25:17.577):
and then pointed out to me a discrepancy between those things.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:25:20.119):
And I was like, oh, you are so correct.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:25:22.541):
And thank you.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:25:23.102):
Because I got wrapped up in my story and I couldn't see it myself.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:25:26.164):
So...

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:25:27.927):
I'm really just feeling into how all of this integrates,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:25:31.588):
the reactivity,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:25:33.149):
the reflection,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:25:34.169):
the changing the story,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:25:35.749):
how coaching helps.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:25:38.210):
And I feel like we just painted the whole picture of that.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:25:42.531):
And I also want to slow down a little bit and maybe go back to like the very

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:25:45.592):
beginning and an assumption I made that I think we can unpack together.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:25:48.573):
So

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:25:58.018):
Hi friend,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:25:58.758):
Amelia here,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:25:59.599):
interrupting this wonderful conversation because if I were not releasing this

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:26:05.300):
during Anti-Paywall August,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:26:07.541):
this is where the paywall would drop and free access to the episode would end.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:26:13.163):
So if you are a paid subscriber, you never have to hear these.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:26:17.390):
You get access to all of the episodes in the Clubhouse all of the time,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:26:21.054):
my friend,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:26:21.674):
as thanks for your support of my work.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:26:24.197):
And if you are currently a free subscriber,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:26:26.279):
this is your friendly reminder that I am inviting you to upgrade to paid to enjoy

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:26:31.183):
our catalog of over 30 Clubhouse exclusive episodes.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:26:36.408):
in addition to being able to hear this conversation in the future because it is

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:26:41.032):
free for the month of August,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:26:42.493):
but then it will be behind the paywall again,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:26:45.215):
my friend.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:26:45.956):
So thank you so much for tuning in and gratitude for your decision to upgrade to

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:26:51.280):
paid if that is one you were able to make today.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:26:56.983):
I sort of came to you with this question from the perspective of I've been super

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:27:00.844):
reactive this year,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:27:02.425):
but I kind of want to slow it down for listeners and ask you,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:27:05.166):
like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:27:05.786):
how can somebody tell that they're acting from a place of reactivity instead of a

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:27:10.347):
place of reflection?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:27:11.228):
Like what might be some signs that maybe you're in kind of a sticky,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:27:15.189):
reactive place in your work or your business or your leadership?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:27:19.030):
What might be coming up when that's the case?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:27:21.314):
I think that's such a good question.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:27:22.835):
And I think before I answer that question directly,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:27:25.677):
I think another thing maybe to sort of keep in mind as we talk about reactivity is

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:27:32.502):
that we're not robots.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:27:34.483):
And I find myself saying that a lot because especially as business owners,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:27:38.986):
and high performers,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:27:40.247):
people who've done amazing things,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:27:41.548):
you've achieved incredible things,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:27:43.250):
we sort of like to think of ourselves as constantly being able to perform at a

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:27:47.173):
really high level.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:27:48.514):
But even just having that expectation is incredibly unhealthy and not really useful.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:27:54.719):
And so a lot of times with my clients, I will say

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:28:01.576):
They realize maybe something's off based on feedback.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:28:06.318):
So, you know, maybe a board member says something.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:28:09.080):
I don't know.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:28:10.120):
The CEO is like, hey, what's happening?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:28:11.941):
What's up?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:28:12.401):
Do you feel like you need some support?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:28:14.278):
But sometimes it is something external of them that sort of like nudges them maybe

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:28:18.822):
a little bit.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:28:19.863):
And then they sort of reflect and they're like,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:28:22.065):
oh,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:28:22.205):
you know,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:28:22.465):
maybe I do need an outside perspective and someone maybe who's outside of my

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:28:27.069):
existing work to potentially support me.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:28:30.472):
Other people can identify this because they have maybe rituals and routines where

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:28:34.996):
they maybe are reflecting.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:28:36.317):
And so they're able to look back and be like, hmm, like this seems like it seems a bit off.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:28:41.581):
Something is...

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:28:42.762):
is not particularly working here for me.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:28:45.785):
And, you know, I want to do something about it.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:28:47.707):
So sometimes that can help to indicate like, ooh, there's some reactivity here.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:28:53.192):
For others, there's maybe something they wanted to do or something they weren't able to achieve.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:28:58.997):
And so that sort of makes them feel like,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:29:00.839):
oh,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:29:01.700):
like there's a gap here and there needs to be some way to close this gap

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:29:06.488):
So maybe I need to take some time and reflect on this,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:29:09.875):
or maybe now I'm willing to take some time to reflect on this.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:29:13.905):
But I would say overall,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:29:16.127):
one of the things that any leader,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:29:18.249):
whether you're a small business leader,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:29:19.550):
whether you're working at a massive startup,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:29:22.173):
whether you work at a massive corporation,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:29:25.076):
is creating some sort of ritual or routine where you have an opportunity to,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:29:30.781):
one,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:29:31.001):
check in with yourself.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:29:33.423):
And that's a little different for everybody.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:29:34.765):
So some people can do it maybe 10 minutes every single morning.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:29:37.367):
Other people, maybe they set aside time.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:29:39.509):
one particular day of the week to sort of check in,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:29:41.591):
to sort of ask themselves those questions,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:29:44.033):
you know,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:29:44.494):
reflect on them.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:29:45.475):
It might not even be written,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:29:46.575):
but just taking some time to like do your own,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:29:49.538):
for the lack of a better word,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:29:50.859):
audit of how you're feeling is sort of one piece of it.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:29:53.802):
And then the second piece is sort of doing that some sort of reflection on what

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:29:59.587):
you're actually doing,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:30:00.888):
right?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:30:01.589):
Whether it's work,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:30:03.050):
time outside of work, but just also just checking in and reflecting on that.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:30:07.898):
And that's also going to help you have those data points.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:30:12.381):
acknowledge whether or not something truly is a pattern or if it's just a one-off thing, right?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:30:16.702):
Because as human beings, we also have that negativity bias.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:30:19.903):
And so sometimes when something's off,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:30:21.764):
we might sort of misinterpret it as things have been off forever.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:30:26.565):
And so having some way of tracking it,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:30:28.886):
if that's something you're comfortable doing,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:30:30.947):
will help to reduce sort of that typical,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:30:35.028):
completely normal response that we sometimes have.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:30:39.011):
100%.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:30:39.051):
I feel very called in by that.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:30:42.176):
Just for an example from my personal life,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:30:44.099):
when I got married,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:30:46.663):
my spouse sort of pointed out to me that,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:30:49.306):
I don't know,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:30:49.687):
like every eight weeks I would decide we had no money and I would panic because we

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:30:53.533):
had no money.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:30:54.734):
And the financial situation had not changed at all.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:30:57.678):
It just had to do with like my feelings.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:30:59.941):
And so with that external reflection,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:02.964):
what we ended up doing was building in actually a monthly routine of categorizing

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:07.790):
all of our spending,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:08.771):
seeing where the like

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:10.773):
what we were putting our money toward or spending our money on.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:13.955):
And then noticing,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:16.157):
like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:16.717):
let's look back at the past three months and let's look back at this month last

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:19.859):
year and see,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:20.680):
like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:21.340):
is it comparable?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:22.181):
Have things gone up?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:23.522):
And often what the data told me,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:26.564):
what the dollars and cents told me is that our spending was actually exactly the

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:30.866):
same.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:31.086):
We had the exact same amount of money or net worth or whatever as we did eight weeks ago.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:34.649):
It's just my feelings that were different.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:37.010):
And after we did that for two or three years,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:39.271):
actually this year we stopped doing the tracking because I had sort of healed that

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:45.554):
pattern within me or I had actually like really worked my way through and beyond

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:49.295):
that pattern of the panic around money.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:51.096):
And now we don't need to track as closely because I trust myself and I have like an

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:31:56.638):
inner knowing instead of needing that like a data knowing in its own way.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:32:00.900):
Yeah.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:32:01.516):
Yeah, I was going to say, yeah, this idea of, you know, facts and sort of feelings.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:32:06.579):
And don't get me wrong, feelings are important, right?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:32:08.880):
I think they can be really helpful for like identifying things,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:32:11.621):
but sort of creating like you've you've identified like this habit or routine.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:32:15.643):
And then most importantly, letting it go.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:32:17.784):
Right.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:32:17.984):
I think sometimes we hold on to things for too long as well.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:32:20.946):
And I would say.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:32:21.986):
It's really it kind of reminds me of sort of this habit I had of doing like my time audit.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:32:26.051):
Like I let that go.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:32:26.973):
I don't need that anymore because I it was also me panicking about like I'm

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:32:31.218):
spending my time on the right thing.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:32:32.159):
I need to, you know, and I'm at a point where I don't need to do that.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:32:34.902):
I have other ways of also checking that my time is going towards the right thing.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:32:38.507):
But I absolutely love that.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:32:39.648):
So thank you for sharing that.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:32:41.130):
As I was listening to you,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:32:42.091):
I was sort of trying to track like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:32:43.972):
yeah,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:32:44.192):
what would be the questions,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:32:45.753):
you know,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:32:45.993):
for a listener to ask themselves if they're kind of like things maybe feel a little

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:32:50.196):
off and it sounded from what you were saying,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:32:51.657):
like it could be a very simple practice.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:32:53.098):
That's really just I was kind of tracking like three questions you could ask

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:32:56.780):
yourself at the start and end of each day,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:32:58.621):
which would be like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:32:59.122):
how am I feeling?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:00.603):
What am I doing?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:01.503):
And yeah.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:03.928):
Is there somewhere I want to go and am I moving toward that?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:07.750):
Seems to be the other piece.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:08.691):
That sort of gets at that like gap.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:10.232):
Like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:10.752):
you know,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:11.032):
I encounter this a lot with my clients where it's like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:13.213):
you know,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:13.814):
at Softer Sounds,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:14.454):
like start a podcast has often been on people's to-do list or vision board for

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:18.976):
years.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:20.157):
And if you're doing that sort of check in with yourself,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:22.418):
is there something somewhere I want to go like to become a podcaster?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:25.558):
And am I getting there?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:26.439):
Right.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:26.659):
Sort of noticing those gaps.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:28.379):
I think that those three questions could be a really simple way to do a check in to

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:33.980):
get that information,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:35.121):
to be reflective,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:36.561):
like you're saying,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:37.421):
to know,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:38.361):
like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:39.002):
how are you feeling?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:40.922):
What is the fact of how you spent your day?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:43.624):
And do those facts move you toward what you want,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:46.247):
I think,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:46.667):
can be a really nice way to reflect daily or weekly or even monthly.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:50.851):
And then in the context of business or our personal lives,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:53.653):
like I just shared the example from,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:55.415):
like money is a piece of that picture.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:33:57.356):
So I built in these routines around money to help me move from reactive.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:34:02.621):
Like the reactive was the panic that I felt that seemed to like come out of nowhere.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:34:07.305):
That was reactivity.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:34:08.726):
But then the reflective piece was questioning that panic.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:34:12.248):
And then the routine comes in to help me move through that pattern.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:34:16.570):
Because I think,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:34:17.971):
you know,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:34:18.791):
the older I get,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:34:19.712):
the more I just reflect on how unconscious so many of my

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:34:23.854):
patterns are, both my emotional patterns and my thought patterns.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:34:29.257):
And so it's helpful to me to recognize those and work through them.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:34:34.439):
And some of them honestly are just things that are like true about my personality

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:34:37.441):
and aren't going to change.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:34:38.301):
And that's fine.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:34:39.482):
And some of them are things that I can like shift if I so choose.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:34:44.444):
The other thing I think I just wanted to circle back to kind of from my initial

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:34:48.668):
question that you spoke to,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:34:49.709):
like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:34:49.949):
what is reactivity?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:34:50.990):
How do we know if we're being reactive?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:34:52.452):
Is being reactive even a bad thing?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:34:54.173):
Like, I loved that you started with, we are not robots.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:34:58.037):
And I think this is so important because like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:35:00.419):
Yes.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:35:00.539):
Yes.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:35:22.538):
Reacting is a human process and a positive action.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:35:27.981):
But I think,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:35:29.322):
again,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:35:29.702):
to go back to the very beginning,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:35:31.243):
what we're trying to get at here with moving from reactivity to reflectivity or

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:35:35.085):
reaction to reflection is that reaction that feels bad.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:35:39.807):
For me...

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:35:41.468):
Those questions we're asking ourselves, the reflection process is so necessary.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:35:45.692):
So I can start to identify, like, am I feeling bad?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:35:48.696):
Have I been feeling bad for a while?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:35:50.858):
Do I just feel bad today, but I believe it's been forever?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:35:53.520):
Like you said, that sort of negativity bias.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:35:56.463):
And I don't want to feel bad in my work or my life.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:00.207):
So if I notice that I'm feeling that way, like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:03.250):
I want to reflect and change.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:05.952):
And I was trying to think of other examples of like reactivity for me.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:09.694):
Like something I've noticed,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:11.135):
I think I started here is like my inbox is a huge place of reactivity.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:14.857):
Like my workday starts so much better if I sit at my desk and work on a project I care about.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:21.861):
than if I just open my email inbox and start to respond to everything everyone else

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:26.643):
wants from me.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:27.783):
And so I think the other thing about moving from reaction to reflection is shifting

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:31.944):
into that sense of autonomy and sovereignty with our work and our work day.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:39.227):
And that's the other reactivity piece.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:40.667):
There's like the feel bad piece or there's like the feedback piece you mentioned.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:44.708):
Like maybe somebody is like giving you some feedback that your work wasn't as good

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:48.049):
as you thought it was or that it didn't make...

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:50.610):
the most sense that you thought it did or that like you're not paying attention to

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:54.092):
something you need to be paying attention to.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:55.493):
So there's like the bad feeling.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:57.554):
There's the sort of like critical feedback.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:36:59.955):
But then I also think there's the loss of autonomy that creates reactivity where

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:37:04.738):
it's like if you're not leading yourself through your workday,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:37:08.640):
if you're being led by Slack,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:37:11.241):
by your inbox or by Slack or by something else,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:37:15.163):
that's also reactivity.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:37:16.124):
And we want to get out of that place as well.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:37:17.764):
Would you agree with that?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:37:19.332):
Definitely.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:37:20.073):
The way I would say a lot of my clients sort of talk about it is,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:37:23.115):
you know,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:37:23.596):
stop,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:37:24.076):
you know,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:37:24.657):
just sort of checking tasks off your to do list and like focusing on really

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:37:28.540):
strategic things that only you can do.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:37:31.262):
Right.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:37:31.903):
And that maybe really light you up as well, potentially.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:37:34.585):
Yeah.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:37:35.386):
And I think one of the big challenges of being a small business owner,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:37:37.748):
especially a solo business owner,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:37:39.369):
is like you also have to do the small tasks you don't want to do.

(00:37:42.712):
Yeah.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:37:45.402):
But for me,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:37:46.123):
it's like I try to create the conditions where I can choose those small tasks,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:37:51.667):
even if they're not my favorite ones,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:37:53.908):
instead of feeling like forced into them by some external circumstance.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:37:58.512):
So to go back to the example of money,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:38:00.073):
you know,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:38:00.693):
I crafted this monthly money ritual for myself so that I could sort of open this

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:38:05.257):
container where I feel sovereign and I go to QuickBooks and I choose to categorize

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:38:10.040):
everything and pay my invoices and do that.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:38:12.942):
And that allows me to function from a place of reflection rather than just like

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:38:19.129):
panicking every time I get a contractor invoice in my inbox and like stressing to

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:38:22.733):
pay it immediately and stressing to do this.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:38:24.715):
Like that's a very reactive response.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:38:27.277):
Whereas if I create my money ritual and I have this container and I tell everybody

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:38:30.561):
I pay all invoices on the 30th,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:38:32.222):
so I will pay you then.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:38:33.304):
Like now I have...

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:38:35.826):
It's not that I'm like trying to control the situation,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:38:40.370):
although I am controlling it to some extent,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:38:42.052):
but I'm really just trying to give myself that agency and to reclaim my agency.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:38:46.916):
I obviously don't have control over if QuickBooks goes down that day.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:38:52.080):
Right.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:38:52.800):
But I have reclaimed my agency to choose to relate to money and to handle money in

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:38:57.141):
the way that I want.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:38:58.041):
And that's what I think is so powerful.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:39:00.442):
And it's what I love about self-employment.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:39:02.062):
It kind of forces your hand.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:39:03.423):
If you don't choose all of that stuff,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:39:05.463):
you will just get like dragged by the horses of your business into the like off the

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:39:10.224):
end of the cliff.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:39:10.824):
Like it feels so bad if you don't find a way to make this shift.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:39:14.867):
Oh, definitely.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:39:15.588):
And I love how you described it because I would say I do something really similar as well.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:39:19.530):
Right.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:39:19.790):
So for me,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:39:20.291):
the way I would describe it is sort of like,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:39:22.212):
you know,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:39:22.512):
setting the expectations,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:39:23.873):
setting boundaries.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:39:25.614):
I love to create sort of like really easy checklist for me to get through because I

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:39:29.657):
love the feel good hormones that come from being able to sort of check things off.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:39:33.499):
I also love naming things.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:39:35.221):
And so I have operation this project that.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:39:38.263):
And that really sort of helps me get into the mood to do some of the things I don't

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:39:41.985):
really enjoy,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:39:42.986):
which is usually more accounting.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:39:45.388):
And invoicing related.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:39:47.209):
Yeah, 100%.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:39:48.730):
Yeah, I feel like that comes up so much.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:39:50.632):
I also love the naming piece.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:39:53.755):
I too,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:39:54.375):
like I have a event on my calendar the last business day of each month and I call

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:39:58.038):
it Bank of Amelia Day.

(00:40:00.200):
Oh, I love that.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:40:01.901):
Just depending on how I'm feeling.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:40:03.542):
But I'm like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:40:04.122):
this is where I'm,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:40:05.603):
instead of like feeling stressed about having to like deal with the bank,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:40:08.504):
I make myself the bank.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:40:09.564):
And I'm like, I can do this.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:40:10.905):
So I think like naming,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:40:13.546):
like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:40:14.567):
yeah,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:40:15.287):
it's a form of,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:40:16.167):
you know,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:40:16.468):
I would say like can be a form of sort of like setting the mood or casting the

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:40:20.870):
spell that brings the intention that we want to bring to it,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:40:23.391):
you know,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:40:23.691):
depending on people's magical inclinations.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:40:25.832):
But I just really find...

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:40:28.653):
that to be so powerful.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:40:29.854):
And again, this is what I love about talking to coaches.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:40:33.195):
We really get to highlight the power of mindset shifts and the power of how we

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:40:37.596):
choose to approach things can really change both our relationship to them,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:40:42.478):
but also what happens.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:40:43.899):
Again, we can't control it, but we can relate to it differently and that can shift the outcome.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:40:49.141):
And I think that that's so important.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:40:53.403):
So I want to, once again,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:40:58.467):
go back to the very beginning of our conversation.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:41:01.029):
And I want to talk a little bit more about changing the story we're telling about our business.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:41:05.252):
Because at this point,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:41:06.032):
we've both shared that this is a tough year in business and our revenue is lower

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:41:11.035):
than we have expected or than it has been in the past.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:41:14.758):
And as I shared earlier,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:41:16.759):
I have definitely been telling this story that it is a bad year in my business.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:41:21.723):
And

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:41:22.683):
And in the beginning, I think that actually was like a shift from reaction to reflection.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:41:29.426):
It was like, OK, let me acknowledge this.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:41:31.206):
Let me notice it, acknowledge it and feel like, OK.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:41:34.748):
And that allowed me to sort of normalize it.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:41:36.609):
And then I could talk to other people about it.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:41:38.289):
And I felt affirmed and like seen and witnessed and in community around it.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:41:43.465):
Now that all of that has happened,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:41:45.507):
like that was a super important stage of this story for me,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:41:48.909):
I think,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:41:49.270):
like just instead of denying it's happening,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:41:52.092):
acknowledging what's happening and then getting some support from peers around

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:41:55.655):
that.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:41:57.799):
Now I'm looking around the world and I'm a little bit like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:42:00.241):
okay,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:42:00.541):
I think things might be hard for a while.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:42:03.104):
And I don't want to spend the next like X number of years telling the story that

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:42:07.447):
it's a bad time in my business.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:42:09.129):
I want to change that story.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:42:10.250):
I want to tell a different story.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:42:13.192):
Not a fake story or not a story that denies like what's really happening in the

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:42:17.796):
world or that denies that my numbers might be lower than before.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:42:21.419):
But I want to relate to that differently.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:42:22.921):
So I want to change the story I'm telling.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:42:25.836):
I'm so curious,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:42:29.198):
what frameworks do you teach or resources do you have to help yourself or business

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:42:34.021):
owners like me or our listeners change a story like that around our business?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:42:39.784):
Yeah.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:42:40.625):
The first always is right, that awareness piece, right?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:42:42.986):
So it sounds like you're really clear on the story you want to tell yourself.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:42:46.348):
So that's great.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:42:48.870):
I have made approximately 25 podcast episodes about it.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:42:52.191):
So it has articulated itself.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:42:55.458):
Yeah.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:42:55.898):
But what I really love,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:42:56.859):
though,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:42:57.079):
about what you've shared is the importance of acknowledging the story,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:43:00.920):
even if it isn't necessarily the most positive or constructive story,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:43:04.141):
because I think sometimes we miss that step.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:43:07.103):
We feel like we have to sort of ignore it.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:43:10.564):
We have to, I don't know, some might say apply toxic positivity to it.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:43:16.106):
And maybe that works for some humans, doesn't work for me.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:43:19.867):
I don't think it works for most of my clients either.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:43:22.527):
And so I do think creating space to,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:43:26.188):
for the lack of a better word,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:43:27.429):
maybe grieve a bit,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:43:29.109):
process whatever that kind of looks like for you,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:43:32.290):
rant about it.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:43:33.630):
I think from my perspective, in my own experience, I think that can be quite powerful.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:43:38.911):
quite constructive and quite helpful and allows you to get through to that next

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:43:43.698):
step,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:43:44.499):
which I typically like to call sort of that engagement step.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:43:47.162):
Like, how do you want to show up differently?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:43:49.926):
What are some of the options?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:43:51.889):
What can I potentially try?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:43:54.841):
What is potentially a different story?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:43:56.943):
You know, I can tell myself.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:43:58.345):
Right.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:43:58.565):
So,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:43:58.725):
for example,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:43:59.346):
for me,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:43:59.746):
I've decided to tell myself that,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:44:01.628):
you know,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:44:02.349):
this year is going to continue on.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:44:04.111):
You know, I'm not going to be out in the streets.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:44:06.434):
I'll be fine.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:44:07.154):
It's not going to be my best year ever.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:44:08.956):
So I'm just going to put my energy into thinking about what I want to do for next year already.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:44:14.683):
You know.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:44:15.464):
And sort of start there.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:44:16.524):
So that's sort of the story I sort of want to tell myself.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:44:19.385):
Not going to be the best year.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:44:21.066):
I've done the best I can.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:44:22.166):
I'm going to look into what I can do for next year.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:44:25.087):
And sort of resetting those expectations and that sort of that last piece,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:44:28.988):
resetting those expectations.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:44:31.289):
And a piece of it with resetting those expectations is also potentially,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:44:35.070):
you know,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:44:35.351):
asking yourself,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:44:36.151):
when do I sort of want to check in with this story and check in whether or not this

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:44:40.552):
story is getting me closer or further away from

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:44:43.073):
for some of the things I see for myself or the vision I potentially have for myself.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:44:48.435):
And so typically when I'm working with my clients or I'm even thinking about some

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:44:52.497):
of the things that are coming up for me,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:44:54.338):
I'm starting off with trying to cultivate my awareness,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:44:57.339):
whether that's through journaling,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:44:58.620):
looking at external data,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:45:00.401):
as I have conversations and people are mirroring back.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:45:03.422):
I'm then thinking to myself, you know, how do I want to engage with this information or how

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:45:07.924):
Who do I need to engage with to maybe provide some different options or maybe do

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:45:11.468):
something differently?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:45:12.949):
And then what are the expectations I want to set for myself explicitly related to this?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:45:17.914):
And sometimes as you set those expectations, they might be time bound.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:45:21.438):
So they might be, hey, I want to maybe review this a month from now.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:45:26.182):
Or,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:45:26.763):
hey,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:45:26.983):
like,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:45:27.303):
maybe I need to sit down and be very detail-oriented about what this looks like for

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:45:31.326):
the next six weeks.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:45:33.007):
Or,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:45:33.208):
nope,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:45:33.888):
maybe I actually want to leave it a bit more open and I just want to reflect on

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:45:36.830):
what it could look like a year from now,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:45:38.812):
right?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:45:39.272):
None of those things are wrong.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:45:40.333):
It's really just going to depend on the situation.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:45:42.454):
But typically I'm thinking about those three things.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:45:45.096):
You know, what's the story?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:45:46.958):
Or, you know, how am I feeling?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:45:48.579):
That awareness piece.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:45:50):
How do I want to engage with it?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:45:51.341):
Myself and others.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:45:52.422):
And then what are the expectations I want to set for myself and others?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:45:56.175):
I love this framework, awareness, engagement, expectations.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:01.238):
And, you know, I can think about so many times I have applied that to my business before.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:05.461):
Like, for instance, last year, I set a very high revenue goal for myself.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:10.604):
And I even like said it publicly, like I put it on the podcast feed, which was a wild decision.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:14.286):
Yeah.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:16.347):
And then after living out that goal,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:19.689):
living within that goal for a quarter,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:22.470):
I noticed that I just felt like I was failing all the time because I wasn't making

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:27.412):
the amount per month that it would have took to reach that goal.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:30.774):
And instead of spending my entire year feeling like I was failing,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:34.855):
I decided to just lower the goal.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:36.616):
And then all of a sudden the revenue I'd already made was a success.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:40.318):
Like I was able to have that awareness,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:43.339):
engage by showing up differently and then change the expectation.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:47.021):
And it totally changed the tenor of my year last year.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:50.803):
And then reflecting on how that happened also helped me unearth a deeper pattern

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:54.985):
where I have,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:56.106):
you know,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:46:56.706):
sort of from my like hashtag girl boss background,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:47:00.468):
which was really just like watching girl bosses do things.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:47:03.249):
But like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:47:05.353):
I learned that I should be setting outrageous goals to try to like manifest them

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:47:09.275):
for myself,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:47:09.915):
right?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:47:10.115):
Like I was taught that.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:47:10.976):
I could talk about this for days.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:47:12.637):
I do a lot.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:47:13.517):
I have a lot of conversations about goal setting and then like,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:47:16.578):
well,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:47:16.999):
a lot of conversations about strategy and then like kind of goal setting and then

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:47:20.480):
operationalizing the strategy and those pieces.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:47:22.821):
And there is a lot of business books,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:47:25.203):
a lot of discourse,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:47:26.283):
a lot of research around like goal setting and this idea of like a unicorn goal.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:47:30.385):
And as someone who comes from the startup space, like I understand.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:47:33.308):
But I also know as someone who's managed a lot of people and from different

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:47:36.670):
cultures,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:47:37.331):
that it also can be very demotivating,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:47:39.253):
actually.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:47:40.193):
And so I have conversations with my clients,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:47:41.935):
especially when they are founders,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:47:43.696):
so specifically startup founders,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:47:45.458):
that they really have to understand their audience as it relates to both strategy

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:47:49.341):
and goal setting.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:47:50.462):
And that what they share with their investors might not be what they share with their team.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:47:54.105):
And how they break down goals and strategy for their team might be very different

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:47:57.286):
just for the reason that you've identified.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:47:59.507):
It can be very, very demotivating.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:48:01.748):
And goals can be very powerful.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:48:02.908):
So it's not to say that you shouldn't want to stretch someone,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:48:05.349):
but you have to make sure they have the resources.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:48:07.590):
There's a lot that goes into it.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:48:08.671):
So sorry for interrupting you, but I am so with you.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:48:11.552):
And this is something I also see,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:48:12.972):
whether it's a solo business person like us or within larger corporations.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:48:19.235):
It's a lot of the same stuff.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:48:21.277):
Yeah.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:48:21.798):
Oh, I'm so glad you chimed in with that because that's definitely my experience as well.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:48:25.902):
And like one of the first times I realized this didn't work was actually when I was

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:48:30.346):
working for someone else and they set a very big goal.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:48:34.090):
And I just saw it and I like withered because I was like, I already feel overextended.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:48:39.295):
I already feel like I don't know how to meet my like deliverables week to week.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:48:43.499):
And now you're telling me we need to be making like twice as much money as we did.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:48:47.884):
And you're not presenting me with a plan of how we're going to do that other than

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:48:50.907):
me feeling like I got to carry that goal on my back.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:48:53.349):
And like as a team member, that was such a challenging experience.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:48:57.033):
But then I realized when I came into my own business, I started doing that to myself again.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:01.217):
And I was like, okay, fine.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:02.338):
We're going to stop this pattern.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:03.960):
That's like kind of what I learned.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:04.921):
I was like, okay, now I see that this is the pattern and it's not working for me.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:09.966):
And I would say like what I've done in response is when I have a metric-based goal,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:15.272):
that's where I have a much clearer path to,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:17.154):
as you put it,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:17.594):
like operationalize that goal.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:19.096):
I'm like, okay, I can see the actions this will take.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:21.478):
I can see the benchmarks I want to hit on the way.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:23.360):
Like I can piece this out.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:25.382):
But I've saved my unicorn goals, as you put it.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:28.465):
Those are like the very tangible things I want to do and achieve,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:32.388):
but they're not based on like X number of anything.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:35.671):
So for instance,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:36.512):
like one of my,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:37.573):
I have like a list of like unicorn podcasts I'd love to be a guest on.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:42.237):
And that's not about numbers.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:43.399):
It's about like me acting and pitching myself and like working toward that.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:47.083):
So I set some very lofty goals,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:49.366):
but I've stopped setting lofty revenue goals because setting metrics I don't know

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:53.711):
how to meet just always sets me up for that demotivation,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:49:56.634):
as you put it.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:49:57.972):
Oh, I really love how you brought this up.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:50:00.093):
So when I'm having conversations,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:50:02.494):
you know,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:50:02.735):
once again,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:50:03.215):
going from thinking about strategy to like operationalizing it and trying to make

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:50:07.137):
it a bit more tangible,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:50:08.398):
I love to always talk about like inputs and outputs.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:50:11.499):
And for so many of us,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:50:12.480):
we talk about sort of the results or the outputs we want that we don't have

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:50:15.461):
complete control over.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:50:16.942):
for example we don't have complete showover revenue and yet that is like the main

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:50:20.845):
thing that we talk about and don't get me wrong that can be really important or is

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:50:24.969):
really important for a business but what might be even more important especially as

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:50:28.912):
you're thinking about it from the perspective of a team member is what are the

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:50:32.535):
individual things that that team member is going to do to get there so the inputs

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:50:36.998):
and making sure that you know the team member or the business owner is really clear

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:50:40.481):
on those inputs to help themselves get there and you know

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:50:44.844):
as a business owner, right?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:50:45.785):
You have to create space to sit down and try and sort of potentially reverse engineer, right?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:50:50.929):
Some of these outputs you want, right?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:50:52.590):
So if you want that revenue goal,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:50:54.292):
what does that potentially mean and how often you do outreach or how,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:50:57.534):
like what's your attitude towards follow-up,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:00.096):
right?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:00.737):
And things like that.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:01.637):
And so when you start breaking it down that way,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:05.180):
Then,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:05.681):
right,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:06.141):
you know,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:06.461):
the hope is right,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:07.302):
because at the end of the day,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:08.723):
when it comes to like outputs or thinking about results,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:11.925):
those are all hypothesis.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:13.427):
You don't know you're going to get it.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:14.988):
Even strategy.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:16.409):
It's all hypothesis.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:18.450):
I actually think I saw something somewhere from someone who does it like this

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:21.353):
amazing guy who does a lot of strategy work.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:23.254):
I think he put something like a revenue goal is like a myth.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:26.917):
And it is when you think about it.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:28.818):
You don't know, right?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:30.438):
But the hope is,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:31.238):
right,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:31.938):
you are clear on the habits,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:33.659):
routines,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:34.619):
systems that hopefully will get you there,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:37.300):
right?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:37.440):
Because that you have a little bit more control over than the actual results.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:41.481):
And yet we all tend to focus so much on those,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:44.661):
the output pieces that we don't have complete control over.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:47.522):
What I prefer to do is, do I like, like for me, I'm a very process sort of driven person, right?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:54.844):
If I don't like the process, I'm not going to do it.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:56.725):
And so for me, that's where I like to spend a lot of my time and energy.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:51:59.948):
And for the most part,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:02.289):
being sort of a little obsessed with that typically does lead to the results.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:06.932):
Unless you're in a situation where we are right now.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:09.474):
Also, last year wasn't the best year either, to be honest.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:11.516):
But I don't have control over that, right?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:12.757):
I feel like I'm doing everything I can.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:14.960):
But I think,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:15.360):
yes,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:16.181):
reflecting on those pieces can really help you set better expectations,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:20.325):
I think,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:20.685):
overall.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:21.506):
But those inputs and outputs and really watching that, I think, can be really helpful.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:25.410):
And I also really love how you sort of talked about,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:27.712):
you know,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:27.932):
your unicorn goals as well,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:29.834):
right?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:30.394):
And to me, those are sort of like

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:32.116):
you know,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:32.556):
you're really thinking about,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:33.817):
once again,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:34.278):
the inputs,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:34.878):
like what you can do to sort of get there.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:37.600):
But sort of, yeah, they're set and sort of positioned a little differently.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:41.142):
What I like to do in my business is I typically start with what I call like a

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:44.825):
vision for my year.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:46.666):
And so I always come up with a word for the year.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:49.828):
And then I typically have like three,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:52.350):
I guess you can kind of consider them like mantras or affirmations related to how I

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:55.892):
want my year to go.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:57.173):
And then all of my objectives.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:52:59.074):
And then I will say I do tend to use like

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:53:01.696):
key results and then projects.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:53:03.697):
So I have this kind of hybrid system that uses a bunch of different things.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:53:07.359):
But I do kind of have like these more,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:53:09.680):
I would say,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:53:10.901):
habit-based visions for my year where I'm talking about like,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:53:15.023):
what's the attitude I want to have?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:53:17.105):
And like, what are sort of the habits and behaviors that I want to have for the year?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:53:20.827):
And I think that's what's going to drive my results ultimately.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:53:23.968):
And for me, I found that very powerful because, I mean, I literally have them in front of me.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:53:29.051):
Like, so this year,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:53:30.612):
One of them is boundaries create space.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:53:33.013):
The second one is body leads, everything follows.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:53:35.393):
And the last one is challenge drives satisfaction.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:53:38.114):
And like every day I'm just thinking about like,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:53:39.955):
how am I showing up in relation to those three things?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:53:42.515):
And then it sort of cascades down,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:53:44.016):
you know,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:53:44.596):
into my objectives,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:53:45.896):
my key results,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:53:46.656):
and then ultimately the projects and then individual tasks that I do day to day.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:53:49.697):
And I've found it works really well.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:53:51.118):
And it's something I've been doing for years.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:53:53.635):
Oh, I love all of this so much.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:53:55.296):
And thank you for sharing and the specificity of everything that you shared.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:53:58.918):
I'm really feeling like listeners can carry this into how they approach the rest of

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:54:03.580):
this year even,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:54:04.700):
right?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:54:05.060):
It's like we can focus on the process,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:54:08.422):
understanding that part of what makes right now so challenging,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:54:11.924):
as you mentioned,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:54:12.824):
is that the processes that we are comfortable with are not yielding the outputs

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:54:18.647):
they used to.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:54:19.427):
Like we've gotten many of us who've been in business for, you know,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:54:23.089):
three,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:54:23.309):
four,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:54:23.549):
five,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:54:24.110):
10,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:54:24.390):
25 years,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:54:25.551):
it's like we've gotten used to a certain set of inputs that did produce a result

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:54:29.113):
and now they're not.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:54:30.013):
And so we're having to change.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:54:30.994):
We're having to figure that out.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:54:32.435):
But instead of telling the story that nothing we're doing is working, it's like, how do we

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:54:38.627):
reflect figure out what pieces we can like get obsessed with and love again and

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:54:43.010):
then go back to the well and try a new experiment and keep going to see what output

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:54:47.712):
we get there I also really just appreciated that piece about like revenue goals are

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:54:53.556):
myths and I do think it's true on so many levels it's like

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:54:58.338):
I treat my revenue goals kind of like an educated guess.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:00.860):
It's like, I don't know, if I do these things, I think this will happen.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:03.881):
But I also love the word myth because it brings in the fact that a revenue goal is

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:08.344):
a story we are telling about our business,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:10.966):
right?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:11.246):
Myths are legends, are stories.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:14.088):
And so what story do I wanna tell about my business this year?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:16.949):
Well, for me, it pretty quickly became like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:20.879):
This year is challenging and I don't want to overexert.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:23.701):
So the story I'm telling is that we are working this much,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:26.743):
we are taking on this many clients,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:27.964):
we're doing things in this way,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:29.425):
and it will result in less money than last year when I did everything for everyone.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:33.147):
So, you know, it's sort of like, how do we construct that?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:36.910):
And also, where do we build in the like magical realism to our story, right?

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:42.894):
Because I do, you know, earlier I was like, I'm not into girl boss manifestation goals, but

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:48.317):
But I like to invite in luck.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:51.158):
I like to invite in a sprinkle of, wow, that came out of nowhere.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:55.140):
Never could have guessed.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:55:56.160):
You know, for me last year, never could have guessed I'd be a guest on We Can Do Hard Things.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:56:00.722):
That was a dream too big to dream for me.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:56:03.043):
And then it just happened.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:56:05.024):
And so I think it's like,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:56:06.385):
how do we construct the myth of our business,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:56:10.447):
the vision,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:56:11.447):
tell the story that allows us to stay in the practice of awareness,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:56:17.790):
engagement,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:56:18.350):
expectations,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:56:18.990):
like stay with ourselves in that and also allow for these like brilliant,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:56:23.753):
beautiful,

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:56:24.413):
totally out of left field opportunities to land in our lap.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:56:27.034):
Like I want both and I believe we can have it.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:56:29.972):
Agreed.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:56:30.492):
Agreed.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:56:30.812):
And I think,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:56:31.333):
you know,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:56:31.873):
it comes from like what I would describe,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:56:34.354):
like if I was talking to somebody in the workplace,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:56:36.035):
culture,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:56:36.715):
like the how we're showing up.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:56:38.416):
And that's why for me,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:56:39.516):
I feel like it's so powerful to choose every single year how I want to show up.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:56:43.698):
And that's what sort of my three visions are like just focusing on those.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:56:47.620):
I think.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:56:48.220):
Right.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:56:48.500):
Once again,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:56:48.900):
I bother this,

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:56:49.441):
I think will help get me to those results and write the magical things that just

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:56:53.302):
show up and happen.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:56:55.765):
Yeah.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:56:56.505):
Oh, I love it so much.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:56:58.126):
Thank you so much for joining me today.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:00.407):
This has been such a great conversation.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:01.908):
We've gone all over the place.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:03.409):
Like we've gone to so many places I didn't expect.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:05.710):
Could you just tell listeners where they can find you if they would like to be in touch?

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:57:11.133):
You're more than welcome to come and connect with me on my website.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:57:14.154):
I have a contact me form.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:57:16.335):
I always love having chats.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:57:18.336):
So it's my first name.

Akua Nyame-Mensah (00:57:19.797):
So A-K-U-A and then N-M dot com.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:23.679):
A-K-U-A-N-M dot com.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:25.661):
All right.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:25.961):
I will put that in the show notes.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:27.422):
Listeners, definitely head there so you can connect with Aquia.

Amelia Hruby, PhD (00:57:30.845):
And until next time, we will see you off the grid.

(00:57:35.788):
Let's go off the grid.

(00:57:38.810):
Okay.

(00:57:39.891):
Let's go off the grid.

(00:57:42.473):
Okay.

(00:57:43.274):
I know that you really want to put your phone away.

(00:57:46.276):
Yeah.

(00:57:46.836):
Let's go off the grid.

(00:57:49.779):
Yeah.