Shi:
Alright. It’s a new week and we’ve found a new topic here on the Kay & Shi Show, and we are kicking off week two with one of the questions we get asked all the time which is how do you handle it all?
Kay:
Now, the biggest secret that we have when it comes to this question is that most people are looking for some really cool organizational answer, like some strategy for how we handle the mom life and the entrepreneurial life and the spiritual life and the physical life and how do you handle it all while this secret is…
Kay & Shi:
We don’t!
Shi:
We do not handle it all. We are supported and have a massive support system and team around us, and we’ll always point it back to them. We have people in each of those areas that Kay just mentioned, each of those realms who help us and make all this possible.
Kay:
Yep. Some of those people who we just need to shout out right now, first and foremost, our husbands and partners, Danny and Chad.
Shi:
We are so grateful for both of you. Danny edits the podcast you’re listening to here. Chad supports all of our travel, staying with the three kids and running all of their schedules and works, and serves in so many amazing ways and we’re just so grateful for the support of our husbands who allow us so much flexibility at home.
Kay:
Now, of course, we also have to give a shout-out to our incredible teams, not only on our personal growth and development side of things. Megan, you know, we love you. We see you, Kendra, we see you too. But on the Squeeze In side of things as well, we are so blessed in the restaurant industry to have teams because we honestly couldn’t do it if there weren’t people behind us who were helping.
Shi:
No, but one of those people is a recent addition to our circle and his name is Amir. He is the new CEO.
Kay:
Amir!
Shi:
Amir, you are amazing. The new CEO of the Squeeze In, the new leader that’s been brought in there is just doing so well. With the team that we had there, which was Alicia and Ian, Victoria we’re so grateful for all of your hard work over on the Squeeze In side and hey, I know you shouted out our Launch team and our Infinite Energy team, but just truly Megan, Kendra, Martina, Brandon, Maria, you guys all work so hard, and we see you and we’re so grateful for you. But I feel like our teams are obvious. Our husbands are obvious, our parents and our in-laws pitch in a lot as well with childcare, with food, with cleaning, with so much. But there are even so many more that support us in named and unnamed ways that truly when people ask, how do you do it all? The answer is we do not.
Kay:
Well, we couldn’t do it without people just like you who are listening even today. You know, I think that there’s a big misconception that flows around the personal growth and development industry and many of us have kind of heard this adage that everyone has the same 24 hours in the day. And if we’re going, to be honest, I’ve subscribed to that here.
Shi:
Absolutely.
Kay:
Yeah, both of us have subscribed to this idea in the past that we all have the same 24 hours in the day. We used to say we all have the same 24 hours in the day, even Oprah. But that’s not really true. We do not have the same 24 hours in a day having the full support of our life partners and our husbands as a single mom has in that 24 hours in a day.
Shi:
Exactly. Considering all of those, either social issues or constraints or poverty that you have, your 24 hours have to look a lot different. Oprah can design her 24 hours however she likes but she came from a really hard background and faced massive odds. So, her story is very inspiring, and she may even sometimes say something like everyone has the same 24 hours, But the hill she had to climb was a lot steeper than everyone else’s, which means that it’s really not equal. Even though it might be the same distance if the angle is steeper, it’s going to be a lot harder to get to the top.
Kay:
You know, we live right now in something called a meritocracy and the meritocracy has some really interesting social ideals behind it. So, I want to invite a very special guest to the podcast right now. Her name is Professor Shi. Shi, educate us. What is the meritocracy and how does it play into this discussion?
Shi:
Well, the meritocracy is being valued, and thank you for that lovely Professor Shi introduction there. It is when we value someone’s achievements and their placement as their worth as an individual. What’s important to understand here is that for many of us, this is just absolutely ingrained that this is how society is, and this is normal. But this isn’t the only way to design societies and so a meritocracy is typically very individualistic. You’re going to hear things like you can achieve anything. Anyone can get to the top if you work hard enough, the same 24 hours, those kinds of things. But in other cultures, you have a more communal approach where it’s about the community first. It’s about valuing individuals and humans and you won’t hear so much of that, but you’ll hear it’s the good of the order. How do we protect the next generation? So, even just understanding that there are shifts like that can help you understand why maybe you value achievement so much, or maybe why you’re comparing yourself and holding yourself accountable to standards that might not be as easy to achieve as you’ve been told.
Kay:
So, give yourself some slack, if maybe you’re a high achiever like us, and oftentimes you can fall into that trap of well, that idea that everybody has that same 24 hours then why is my life looking different? So, I’m glad that we got into that. We’ve learned a lot along the way about how we maximize what we can with the time that we have. One of the things that we really learned in this is that you don’t have to do it all and you shouldn’t do it all. You should look for help and it’s okay to ask for help especially when you’re not strong at something.
Shi:
Right. You can keep trying to get stronger in those areas, but it is definitely frustrating and it’s to the detriment of your own growth and your own fulfillment. So, we would really encourage you to find what you’re good at and try and stay in that lane the most. That can feel like, well, that’s easy to say because you have the money, or you have the connections, or you have the whatever. But if we can focus our gumption in that direction, rather than just keep on grinding, it’s a lot more strategic and it can usually help you figure out what that support network can look like so that you can stay in that strength zone more often.
Kay:
Well, instead of focusing on trying to make your gaps filled in where you’re weakest, working on those skills in which you’re weakest, spending your time working where your strongest can help you to develop those skills, and trust us, there are plenty of skills that will come around you as you move down your journey. Now, moving down the journey sometimes is not fricking easy. Sometimes moving down the path hurts. It’s painful and you’ll hear a lot here in the Kay & Shi Show. We’re going to be sharing stories and examples every week of things that have happened in our entrepreneurial journey, and it can be hard to go on. But one of those little tenets of success is that if you just keep going, eventually you’ll succeed.
Shi:
Oh, don’t quit messaging. It’s so simple, but so not easy, and maybe you’ve been in that place where you want to give up or you want to throw in, or you just feel like you can’t anymore and continuing to go, not make course corrections. We definitely think that you should always be reevaluating and course correcting but continuing to pursue that which you desire, and you’re trying to achieve or accomplish or build. Eventually, the person who gets to that endpoint has had to have gone through all of those steps. So, you can too, and, and sometimes it does just come down to that, getting through it, grinding through it, and staying accountable to yourself so that you can come through it and get out on the other side.
Kay:
So, our biggest secret to handling it all.
Kay & Shi:
We don’t!
/****/
Kay:
Okay. So, talking about how we handle it all. Now, one of the things that people always say to us is you guys have so much going on. You have so many different things happening in your camp and there was a time in our lives where we honestly felt is that a bad thing? We have so many interests. We have so many wants. We want to do and accomplish and see and be so much and it wasn’t until a very important mentor came along through a book and helped us have a new perspective as to what it might mean to have multiple passions.
Shi:
So, a major shout out here to Marie Forleo. We have never gotten to meet her yet.
Kay:
Yet.
Shi:
But she has been a massive mentor and voice in our lives for a long time. I attended B-School back in 2013. So, nine years we’ve had a relationship with Marie Forleo.
Kay:
But it wasn’t until her book, “Everything is Figureoutable” that we got introduced to the concept brought forward here in just a minute, that helped us shift that guilt and that question that Kay was just mentioning into an aha moment and awareness and understanding. That was, she gave you permission to be a multi-passionate entrepreneur.
Kay:
Ooh, we loved this messaging. What being a multi-passionate entrepreneur meant to us was that we got to have all kinds of multiple interests and that those different interests could serve our entrepreneurial passions? It could serve our hearts and it could serve our pockets. Both of those things that’s what we want for you. We want your hearts to grow. We want your banks to grow. We want your spirit banks to grow. We want everything to grow inside of you because that’s what one of our main overarching passions is. But she gave us this permission to say, you know what? We are multi-dimensional human beings and trying to stick us into one category was just not going to happen.
Shi:
So, if that permission feels good to you, take it and internalize it. It is okay…
Kay:
You’re welcome.
Shi:
…to have multiple interests and to be a multi-passionate entrepreneur. It doesn’t mean you aren’t going to face criticism for it, that everyone will understand it or that at times it won’t sometimes ask so much of you that it can almost bring you to your knees. But if you’re willing to be the kind of person that shows up for that and embraces that, then you have permission just like we do to be multi-passionate entrepreneurs.
Kay:
Now you may have heard this before, but just in case this is your very first time ever hearing this portion of what we’re going to talk about. Just want you to brace yourself because this is pretty mind-blowing for us when we really, really took it in back in 2018. Now, you are a spiritual being who has been gifted with a really beautiful intellect. The mind, the brain, you have this credible brain power but you’re still the spiritual-energetic being and you’re living a physical experience. So, you are rooted as the spiritual being, you’re gifted with the intellect, you’re living in a physical experience. So, even just by your very nature, you are multi-dimensional.
Shi:
Yes, and each one of those levels and dimensions is going to have different desires and different needs and different outcomes and being able to tune into those is what allows you to find those feelings we’re all really seeking. Fulfillment, peace, happiness. When we understand that we’re that spiritual being gifted with an intellect, having a physical experience, we understand that our already full experience is multi-dimensional and so your interest and your passions can be as well. Now, something we would say here in this part is that kind of caveat that things can get really tough and that you will face criticism as you build something, and if you’re multi-passionate and you’ve got one business going well, and you start another business, this is where you’ve got a conflict of interest and it can be difficult because now you’re splitting your time and your attention and your interest. So, as we move through the Kay & Shi Show, you’ll hear us talk about navigating that line, because for us, the second passion, entrepreneurially, speaking emerged in 2015, and now here we are recording in 2022. We’re finally “free from our jobs at the restaurant.” So, this was a seven-year build of being multi-passionate and basically working two jobs.
Kay:
Now, while we went from the entrepreneurial life and the restaurant owners space over to the entrepreneurial life on this other side, we were not the entrepreneurs who had a business. We were the entrepreneurs who had a job. Shila said we left our jobs, and we did. We had nine to fives. We had an office. Yes, we were the man.
Shi:
Meetings, vendor reviews.
Kay:
But it was corporate man. We left our corporate jobs.
Shi:
We’re part of The Great Resignation.
Kay:
We are part of The Great Resignation. So, maybe you’re the type of person who’s getting into that entrepreneurial side of things. So yes, we were the ones in charge and the business owners, but we had a J-O-B, job and in order to make that transition out, we had to find somebody to come in and take that job so that we could be the business owners and really work it from an entrepreneurial perspective versus working in the trenches.
Shi:
But it did take that time and that transition and that was tough. But something that helped us was really following the energy and being able to understand specifically what we did, who we served and how we served, and what we were good at, especially if we were having one that was our large J-O-B, and we knew that that was the financial means to continue supporting our families and lives. We had to treat it seriously and that we could build the other one in a way that helped us stay in that flame and in that lane and understand specifically who we could help. I think understanding that niche and that specific area that we could serve, and help helped us make a more lateral move than some others who might be more broad.
Kay:
Well, we figured out what that strength was. We figured out what our lane was and then we decided to stay within it and after about two years of staying in the lane, guys, we’ve learned some pretty cool things.
Shi:
Hey guys, still us, but just wanted to pop in here really quick and let you know that part of this podcast is brought to you by the Neuroencoding Institute.
Kay:
We are so lucky to be partnered with Joseph McClendon III, who has a Ph.D. in neuropsychology, and now helps others learn how to get the quickest results for people in their coaching business.
Shi:
He’s also been speaking on the Tony Robbins stage for 35 years. He’s spoken live in front of 5 million people, and he has learned a lot of how to help others. So, if you’re at all interested in finding out more about the Neuroencoding Institute, please visit neuroencoding.com.
Kay:
See you there.
Shi:
Now, back to the show.
Kay:
So, in 2021, we came across a local lady leader mentor who slapped us upside the head a little bit and helped us to understand that sometimes you had to make business decisions that were more about where your energy was flowing versus where the money was flowing.
Shi:
Right, and when you are wearing your business hat and having to be that business leader, there are lots of times where, in your head, you’re having to justify what’s right. Within a business they say numbers are the language of business, and it’s absolutely true. The number one goal of business is to make money. So, you have to have money and financial flow and volume and revenue and cost at top of mind all of the time, and that can be a lot of pressure.
Kay:
So, when we talk about how we handle it all, we look at that pressure load, and like we’ve said, we bring in people around us who have that better understanding of what it takes. So, when we really start hitting walls, what we oftentimes do is we get out and we start looking for mentors who can help us, who can add value into our life, who might be able to show us that way forward. To be the lantern carrier for us through a dark night and help us come out on the other side with a new perspective and getting into the place of understanding that when we make decisions for our life sometimes going in that direction of where your energy says yes, is really important.
Shi:
It is and trusting that intuition can help and if…
Kay:
Doesn’t mean it’s not painful.
Shi:
It doesn’t mean it’s not painful. You know, if you’ve been kind of listening this week and in this episode about how do you handle it all and you surround yourself with a team and you stay in your flame and permission to be a multi-passionate entrepreneur. You might start to be thinking but how? How do you do that? Give me some examples and some stories. So, that’s our hope here today and right now is to just share with you some of our stories in those moments of like, how did you not quit? Because we’ve been in those moments, lots of times. In fact, over this last summer was the great labor shortage of 2021.
Now the restaurant industry was kind of the canary in the mind. It was the first industry to really feel the effects because the rest of hospitality was taking a few weeks to catch up to all of the restrictions lifting. People had to book their travel. They didn’t have things planned yet, but they started going out to eat the day restrictions lifted and the labor shortage was felt for us early on. So, in May and June of 2021, we really started to feel it and by July we were at a crisis moment in the labor shortage. Whole big story for another day. But when we thought we couldn’t handle any more, a next-level hit us, and a member of our HQ team had to go on unexpected leave. That absence was extremely difficult and took where we already felt like we were treading water and put basically two more jobs on our plate and said, you’ve got to handle this now. We did handle it, but just barely.
Kay:
Now, one of the things that carried us through that time was a visual. I want you to just imagine. It’s like 1882.
Shi:
Yep.
Kay:
And you’re aboard a wooden ship. The waves were already big, but you just got into the middle of a fricking hurricane and the eye is nowhere in sight and you can’t even see anything. So, it’s 1882, a creaky, creaky ship. Everybody on board the ship is pretty much washed away at this point. Everyone’s gone and you look upon the mast and there at the top of the mast of the ship is the captain clinging to the mast of the ship for dear life looking up into the air with this fist raised saying, “Is that all you got, God?”
Shi:
That maniacal imagery for some reason helped carry around us. You’ve got to be that captain because if we’re going to die in this storm, I’m going to be like…
Kay:
On the ship.
Shi:
I’m going to be hanging on and welcoming the storm and facing it head-on and that’s what we did, and we did dig deep and find that other level. But sometimes finding something like the crazy captain can be one of those small threads that carry you through a difficult time.
Kay:
Right. So, when you’re asking just how maybe sometimes you can go in and dig deep for your internal crazy captain energy…
Shi:
That’s right.
Kay:
…and figure out how to show up in that way. You know, in 2020 when the initial shutdowns happened and the pandemic really took over the restaurant and we were six weeks into extreme shutdowns in our community to go, only literally lost 85% of our revenue overnight on March 16th of 2020 and it was almost 12 weeks until we were even remotely open again under extreme restrictions. We, at one point, had a news anchor come forward and Shila was being interviewed then the news anchor said to Shila, how long can you hold on like this?
Shi:
And I just said with so much emotion and intensity, as long as it takes. As long as it takes. This is our family’s business. This is financial. There are 200 employees’ families and jobs on the line and locations and leases. We are here. It was kind of the same energy…
Kay:
Yes.
Shi:
…as the captain. As long as it takes. And just knowing that there was that full commitment helped carry us. Sometimes, the thing that’s most detrimental is that desire to seek the escape hatch and just to look for the way out–that flight mode. It’s probably better–and energetically speaking–for you to fight as much as you can, especially when you’re faced with those odds and not fight those around you, but to fight to stay in the ring and to stay part of the game and that’s what you’ve got to do. So, answering as long as it takes helped us not have to question where’s the escape hatch, but we were in the ring, and we were playing the game.
Kay:
So, if you’re on any kind of success journey at all, be it a physical or an entrepreneurial success journey or a spiritual success journey. Whatever journey that you’re on, having that as-long-as-it-takes mentality and just doing away with your escape hatches can do so much. We’re not saying don’t have a plan B but what we’re saying is that when the going gets tough, it can be really easy to want to run away. But sometimes even when it’s hard, all you have to do is show up. All you have to do is plant your feet in the location that you don’t want to be and face that storm. Sometimes you’re clinging to the mast of the ship, so you don’t fly off because you’re in the middle of the storm, but you’re still clinging to the ship. So, just how. Just show up.
Shi:
This is where we like to take a lesson from Anna in “Frozen II” who tells us, “Just do the next right thing.”
/****/
Kay:
So, now let’s get a little real. We talked about just how. Well, sometimes just how means that you’ve got to get brutally honest with yourself and take the action.
Shi:
Which is why we want to tackle right now activation, which is one of the things we love, and we love the word activate and we’re definitely both activators on the strengths finder scale. So, glad to see that ranking for us. So likely, if you attract what you are, you probably have some activator energy too. So, you’re like, all right, how do I activate on some of this? Just how. Integration, and that’s what we want to do right now.
Kay:
Right. So, we have some really practical tips for you in how we handle it all. Now we’ve refined some things over the years and figured a lot out about ourselves and had to do things the wrong way for a really long time in order to figure out how to do it right.
Shi:
And still do.
Kay:
Oh, yes.
Shi:
A work in progress.
Kay:
Another episode for another time. But one of the things that we want to talk about very, very first is this idea of your daily energy and how your energy flows as a human. Now, you might already know this, but just in case you don’t, there are a lot of different types of people out there and how energy flows through them. So, if you are someone who says, well, I’m just more of a night person, chances are, you actually are a night person and that’s okay.
Shi:
Absolutely. It is okay. A lot of the focus is around get up early and be an early riser and we are both early risers. That is a special time for both of us. But there are lots of different ways to express as a human. What’s important is knowing what’s your individual expression especially when it comes to energy distribution and tasks and being able to complete things and count on yourself. Now, for me personally, Shila here, I know that if I do not work out first thing in the morning, I will lose the motivation to do it and I will lose it very quickly. The routine that I’ve built for myself is I work out right when I wake up. In fact, I wake up kind of crazy early, like four o’clock in the morning so that I can run my six miles and be showered and ready to still take my kids to the bus stop at 6:40 and then on with my day. Now, I’m maniacal about that because I know I won’t do it in the afternoon and lots of people can, but I can’t.
Kay:
Well, a little bit of that self-awareness can go a long way in creating habit structures for yourself that are really important. I know that pretty much after 2:00 PM, I’m likely not going to get any really hard, critical thinking done in the day. If I have a big technical email or a campaign to review, or we’ve got to really dive deep into something that requires my extreme attention to detail, I have got to tackle that before 2:00 PM. Usually, try and tackle that even before noon, between nine and noon, trying to save more of those social activities or those creative thinking activities for the end of the day, because creative thinking for me is very easy whereas analytical thinking takes a lot of my energy. So, taking that when I’ve got the energy to do it. Taking those hard tasks and eating them while I’ve got the energy to do it, instead of saving it for the end of the day and taking the tasks that are easy for me to energetically accomplish at the beginning of the day has helped set us up for success and ultimately more productivity.
Shi:
Another practical way you can activate this kind of energy in your life is to always try and leave your physical surroundings in a neutral space, whether you’re leaving your desk in a neutral space at the end of the day or your kitchen after the end of a meal. This can really help you keep good habits strong, keep on top of duties and tasks that are likely reoccurring lots for you, and keep things tidy around you so that you can be free to have bigger thinking on the inside.
Kay:
You know, there’s a techno song that goes “Activate your energy. Take your time.” So, that is what we are doing. We activate our energy. We take control of our time, and we find out when are those times that we’re most productive. We arrange ourselves so that we have these disciplinary habits in place and then we really figure out what are our priorities and how do our priorities fit into that energetic structure. Shila’s priority is to ensure she gets out six miles a day. Her energetic structure means that that has to happen at the beginning of the day. So, you do a little bit of stock onto your priorities. You take stock throughout probably about a week of observing yourself as to when you have the most and least energy, and you start to design your days in a way that makes sense for you.
Shi:
Also, when you’re tackling a to-do list, don’t treat every item equally. I know, Kay and I both have running to-do lists at all times. You probably do as well. That’s got 8, 10, 12 items on it. When you look at that, not all of them are created the same and sometimes you’ve just got to get the little ones done so you can feel better and make some progress. But when you can try and tackle the ones that have the most meaning, that advance you the most, that are most critical and important to the outcome that you’re trying to seek. If you’re running a business, usually this is the activities that are most revenue-producing. These are money-making activities. So, when you look at your list, try and use those filters so that you can strategically think about what are the actions that align with those priorities Kay just mentioned.
Kay:
You’ve got to make that money all night. Yeah!
Shi:
Yeah.
Kay:
Right, and maybe that is something when you’re looking at those priorities, those money-making activities or those important activities. If you’re a stay-at-home parent and you homeschool your kids, it could be that, that educational piece with your kids and being present in that is that priority. So, finding what it is that pulls you in that current environment can really help you to understand where those activities need to go. Not always are the things that produce the things that pull you easy or fun, but you have to do them anyway. So, being able to get pulled toward those priorities and prioritizing them while you have the energy can be very helpful.
Shi:
Alright. Another helpful activation motivation here for you is something that Kay and I have both done, which is developed mantras, phrases, chants, or values that help you in those times where maybe your internal dialogue is not being as constructive as you would like to have something that you can say on repeat or that you can press play on the inside of your mind to help just redirect your awareness and attention. So, for Kay, it’s an easy, simple, five words that she focuses on and runs through. For me, it’s a series of eight behaviors or what I like to call my values and I say them through a chant. But both of us really lean on having some kind of preconceived little phrases or collection of words that we can focus our internal energy on when things aren’t being constructive.
Kay:
Well, if you’re anything like us, that internal dialogue, which we’ll talk about a little bit more next week. That internal dialogue can sometimes run a little bit out of control and so being able to have some preset values or a mantra or words of focus that you know will pull you out of destructive thinking and into constructive thinking can help you in those times when you wake up and the alarm goes off at 4:00 AM and everything in your body screams I don’t want to get on that treadmill and it’s cold and you have every reason to stay inside and you start justifying and all of that good stuff. You’re able to bring those values, bring those behaviors, bring that mantra forward, and use it as a catalyst for moving you toward the direction of your dreams. Now, we can’t take credit for this one. This one comes right from our mentor and our business partner, Mr. Joseph McClendon III who believes in the powers of what he calls incantations that really get rooted into your neurology. This is all about training your brain to default to something that is constructive for you maybe when your internal self is being destructive.
Shi:
Alright. That wraps up week two here of the Kay & Shi Show, Sis. We did it!
Kay:
We did it. How do we handle it all? We really don’t, and we’re so grateful that you all are now part of the journey.
Shi:
Yeah. Now, you know the not-so-secret secret to build your team, to focus on your strengths, to find some things to hold onto energetically and to activate into some easy practices so that you can not handle it all too.
Kay:
Next week, we’re going to discuss a little bit more on how to stay positive even when the going gets tough.
Shi:
Hope you’ll join us.