What wakes you up in the middle of the night? Robin Quinn Kheen shares her tips to identify and end outdated or unnecessary commitments, large and small, so you restore focus to what really matters.
Robin spent years as the founder and director of a music & dance studio, teaching and working with thousands of families, creating a vibrant community and becoming an expert in the areas of accountability, goal achievement. A recovering overdoer, Robin now helps parents identify what’s most important and helps them accountably end outdated commitments, promises and agreements so they can spend their time doing what matters most deeply to them.
In this episode we discuss:
- Using happiness as a compass to navigate balance in a busy life
- Recognizing the right opportunities and avoiding overwhelm
- Why people-pleasing can pull us off balance
- Open loops that drain your confidence
- How commitments can hold us back
- Making things right when agreements aren’t working
- Raising “quit-proof” kids
- Making aligned choices
- The power of counting your wins, big and small
Robin is generously extending her offer of free gifts for our audience, including access to “The CLEPTO Code Course” where you can discover the 6 steps you need to simplify your life and her invitation to a Clarity Call with Robin, for a powerful hour to identify open loops that may be holding you back.
Leave a comment below, or join the conversation in the Live with Less Stress facebook group.
Susi: So happy to have you with us today on The Thriving Life Summit. I am Susi Vine, your host, and I am joined today by Robin Quinn Keehn, a dear friend of mine, since we’ve been able to connect in this virtual space, living in one of my favorite places on the planet, up in the Pacific Northwest. And I know you’re going to get so much out of this conversation. We might bring up topics that you’ve never thought of. That could be the ‘light bulb moment’.
Robin is the founder of the Quitting Culture. She helps entrepreneurs and business owners get clear on their purpose, develop the mindset of finishing strong and take intentional action to reach their most personal goals.
A former music and dance studio owner, mom to four kids and a business coach, Robin understands the massive impact unintentional quitting, both for children and adults, has on confidence, self-esteem and results. Using her unique blend of intuition, wisdom and experience and her visionary approach. Robin loves to help her clients achieve their goals and live with greater impact, freedom and joy.
Robin. I’m so excited to have this conversation today.
Robin: I’m excited to be talking with you today. Thanks for inviting me.
Susi: Thank you for making the time. You are a busy, busy lady, coming from coaching calls and dropping in on this interview. So you are the Queen of Keeping it all in the air. I mean, being a mom of four kids, in and of itself, owning your own dance studio, that is a feat, you know, that kind of scheduling and all of the pieces that go into that.
So I’ve admired from the time that we were introduced, how you have all of these pieces in the puzzle and you seem to be very joyful, energetic. And how do you make it all happen?
Robin: Well, part of it is loving what you do. That’s a lot of it for me, is when I had the big music and dance studio and I sold it a few years ago, but I just loved it.
I loved building that community and it really was a pretty cool community in a town of about 5,000 people. We had generally 500 students enrolled. So we really had an impact. And that was fun for me because I wanted to have an impact. I wanted to bring music and dance to this little town where I live in the Pacific Northwest.
So part of it, it’s just loving it. If you’re loving it, you’re inspired. You’re motivated. You’re excited about doing whatever you’re doing, keeping it in balance. I don’t know. My children would probably tell you, there were times where it didn’t feel balanced at all. And I felt like I was crazy person, but yeah I think part of what we’re going to talk about today, Susi. We’ll help our listeners understand a little bit about keeping it in balance.
And that is, keeping it in balance and closing loops that drain our energy, which is what we’re going to talk about. I think, without being aware of those things that we’ll talk about we can lose a lot of energy and focus and direction, which makes everything harder and way harder to stay in balance.
Susi: Yes. And I’m so glad you bring up balance because, like happiness, like self care, somehow these words have gotten to be a little bit triggering and I hear so many people say “balance is a myth.” So I’d love to hear where you fall in this issue.
Robin: Ah, well, I’m not sure that I ascribe to anybody’s particular take on balance. There are so many different ones out there and like you said, some people are like, there’s no such thing. And other people are like, it’s all about balance. We got books written on both sides of the subject, right? And I think for me, it’s always recalibrating, like what feels like balance now? I’m very much the kind of person when I’m in something I am so far in, which can take me out of balance because other things then fall to the wayside, they become neglected.
And so then it’s the waking up to, “oh my gosh, like I’ve gone so far this direction that that direction has lost something.” and coming back to, “okay I’m out of whack” and it may be I. A lot of times, it’s not like I’m not happy. I’m just like, “oh, I’m really far over here.” Like I forgot about all this other stuff.
So for me, it’s mostly just remembering and checking in on myself too. Like “you said, Robin, you said all of these things were important to you.” I have a big whiteboard where I have what’s important to me. “Are you still, are you there or have you shifted somehow?” Right. So I think a lot of it’s just being aware and then honestly, Susi, I think the thing that we’re asked to do is to be happy, right?
So at the end of the day, happiness is really important to me. And if I’m not happy, then have I lost my direction? Have I gone too far in one way or another? That’s taken me out of happy. Does that make sense?
Susi: Yes. Yeah. Oh, there’s so many good directions we could go with that too. I definitely agree. I believe that balance is not a myth unless we’re trying to live up to other people’s pictures of it.
And then we have to remember that we’re looking through that lens of social media or promotion or what, you know, whatever we’re allowed to see. So we’re kind of, setting ourselves up for frustration by chasing something that’s unobtainable. So I love that you really bring attention to it’s about knowing what your priorities are and recognizing where you are checking in.
I think that’s so important and it can be hard to do when we do feel like we have a lot of things in the air at the same time.
Robin: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And so that’s part of what I’d like to help people do is to figure out, get some clarity on what is important.
What does happiness look like? What are the components of that? And then how do we get rid of stuff that actually is interfering with the direction we want to head and a happiness we want to achieve?
Susi: Beautiful. And so that taking a look at the things that might be standing in our way or weighing us down or holding us back, what are some common issues that you see people running into that are preventing them from being happy or feeling balanced?
Robin: Well, so there are things that come up and I don’t care if you’re a mom or you’re an entrepreneur, you’re a dad. It doesn’t matter who you are, but there are, no matter who you are, there are things that come up and are offered to you, right? Opportunities. And I had a boss for many years. I worked as a director of a company called Simply Music in Sacramento and Neil my boss, I didn’t really like bosses, but he was my good dear friend that I worked alongside, let’s say it that way. We used to talk about opportunities.
And he would say to me, “Robin, there are a million opportunities. Wisdom is knowing which one is the one you take.” and I remember that was a new concept for me. I really never had considered it that way, but that’s the fact. We are met with so many opportunities to participate in, all kinds of things, do something, be something, participate in some way.
And the natural inclination for many of us is to say, “Yeah, yeah,” right? And we do it for, I’m not going to judge any of the reasons. There are a million reasons why we say yes to things. And then at some point we feel maybe out of balance or we notice that other things that we said we were going to do, aren’t getting done.
And so there’s overwhelm and there’s procrastination on the things that we’ve said yes to that we’re now realizing we don’t want to do. So I think that’s kind of this cocktail that many of us find ourselves swimming in, is “I’ve got things I want to do. Other people are asking me to do things. I don’t want to miss these opportunities and suddenly I’m spread so thin.”
And then I find myself pulling back and then I procrastinate and then I feel guilty. And now I’m not even moving forward on the things I want. I think that’s happening a lot. And I think it’s happening maybe even more than ever right now, if you’re an entrepreneur, there is so much FOMO out there, and I’m telling you I can’t even count the number of giveaways and summits I received emails about this week. Would you like to be on this? Could you be on that? Would you like to do that? And I actually went, delete, delete, delete. Nope. Nope, because it’s, I’m saying yes, out of a fear of missing an opportunity. So that those words that Neil said wisdom is knowing which ones are for you. Like yeah, okay.
Susi: Yes, so true. And I agree completely that, that emotional burden, the judgment and self criticism frustration… “There we go again, falling short of what we promised other people,” really starts to ratchet up the stress, the fatigue, we just feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day.
Definitely hard to come back to balance when we’re being our own critic. And “why don’t you do more? Why can’t you do?” And I think that kind of in the way that our personal boundaries, after our boundaries have been crossed and we notice we’re resentful about something. I think that the same thing is the case, when we say yes, because it’s exciting or because we don’t want to let someone down or because we feel that it’s expected of us, whatever the reason is, and then that resentment shows up too.
So. We’re going to cover a lot of ground today, but do you have any quick tips on how to avoid ending up in resentment? You know, how do you cultivate that wisdom of knowing what you want to say yes to, or finding the pause. “Let me get back to you in a minute,” and then agreeing and moving forward.
I think that a lot of us, because life happens so fast and we feel like everybody wants immediate answers. Our mouth is open before our brain has caught up
Robin: 100%. And so for me, Susi, like I know what I’m up to. I have a couple of places in my home where I have some things that I can look at. I have a huge post-it note in my bedroom.And I can read that in the morning and I see it. It’s just natural. I just see it. There’s some times I’m not really present to it, but if I wake up with an intention of like, “what am I up to? Oh, there’s the big picture of what I’m up to. Who am I, who I want to be in the world.” And then I come in here where I’ve got a big whiteboard and I can see the things I’m committed to.
And so if I’m being present, if I’m really, if my intention is to like, “hang on, Robin.” You know, I’m the girl growing up that would jump in a pool and then find out if there was water in it. I was just like all in, or kick down a door only to discover like what was on the other side was really not good for me.
So it’s, I know myself, it’s better for me to actually say what you said, which is “hang on. Can I get back to you about an opportunity. Can you give me a minute,” or “can you give me five minutes? Let me text you back and I’ll go look.” Usually I look at my whiteboard cause that’s more like projects and stuff I’m really up to that. I’ll go, “do I have the bandwidth? Does it light me up?” And one of my favorite questions and things to ponder, which I say all the time, even my seven year old grandson knows this one, which I’m not sure that’s a good thing, but it is.
If it’s not a hell, yes, it’s a hell no.
Susi: That’a boy.
Robin: He knows it. Cause he’s here a lot when I’m having my meetings and stuff. And so he’ll say to me, sometimes he’ll even say to me, “grandma, are you sure that’s a hell yes?” He’s that smart. Because he’ll hear people offer stuff and say stuff. So it is, it’s probably a great thing for him to know, but that is a question that if I’m really being honoring of myself and my projects and the things that I said I want to do, then I need to weigh everything against that.
Is it a hell yes? And if it’s not a hell, yes, then it’s got to go. Pardon my French… If you’re offended, you’re offended at this point. It’s a hell no, it’s a no. And I never say that. I don’t say to people “good God. That’s a hell no”. I’ll just say “thank you for thinking of me. Thank you for including me. Thank you for inviting me. I can’t,” without a big explanation or “not right now,” or “no, thank you.” But I don’t also, I also am cautious about not explaining myself to people. Right? “Thank you. No.”
Susi: I love that. That was profound, the first time I heard “no is a complete sentence.”
Because I am the person that feels like, oh, if I can’t meet your request, I have to have a reason why. Why do we do that to ourselves?
Is it that FOMO to a point, we don’t want to be missing out, but also being perceived as more worthwhile, you know, a better friend or –
Robin: Polite. We want to be polite. We don’t want to hurt people’s feelings. We were taught that you put other well, I was taught anyway that you put others in front of you put other’s needs in front of your own.
And that’s why I have this whiteboard with what I’m up to on it. So I can say, hold on. Really, because if I don’t Susi, then you’re right. I can end up in “oh my gosh, why did I do that? Why did I do that again?” And now I’ve got this thing I must do, which I believe me, you and I are both in a joint venture community too, where people are always like, “Hey, would you promote this? Would you do this?” Which is great. And yet, sometimes afterwards I’m like, “why did I say yes?” Like I have – you know, that thing that’s coming to mind right now, is that saying if you don’t plan your day, someone else will plan it for you, you know what I mean?
I’m not sure those are the words, but that’s the essence of it. And so I can stay in balance when I am making thoughtful, intentional decisions. If I am not making thoughtful, intentional decisions, and I’m more of ,ah, people pleasing, for whatever intention, I’m more likely to get out of whack.
And then I’ve got to figure out how do I get out of being out of whack.
Susi: Right. And I noted that you brought up too, the way that we were raised and I feel very much the same kind of influence or pattern in my own childhood was ‘good Midwestern girl,’ and in contrast to the way that your grandson is finding that alignment, checking in at that age. Oh my gosh. If I had had that vocabulary, and awareness…
And I see that reflected so much in my friends who are raising children. I think that this is going to be revolutionary. The emotional awareness that our younger generations have that we’ve really had to teach ourselves because we were taught to be polite, think of others, put others first. All of that, that you just said is such an accurate kind of nutshell of why now we have trouble recognizing that we are worthy of putting ourselves first.
Robin: Yeah. And for me, it’s just a matter of having lived long enough that I finally got it. Like I’ve been told these things, I’ve had experiences of these things.
And finally to the point where it’s like, okay, Robin, seriously nobody really cares that much. Like if I say no to somebody it’s not devastating I’m somebody, they checked off their list, “I asked Robin if she’d do this thing,” go onto the next person. I’m not crushing somebody by saying no, there are many other people that will say yes, I don’t have to save anybody. I don’t. I figured this out a few years ago, too.
I don’t need to be anybody’s lifeboat. I’m not, that’s not what I was designed for. I’m not meant to, and that’s been a hard lesson for me, Susi, and I learned it first in relationships. And then I learned it in my business with somebody. “Okay message received. Let’s not go to my business, please.” It was bad enough when it’s happening in relationships. And then suddenly when it shows up in my business like, oh, I need rescuing. It looks like you could do that.
So I really have had to work at being true to myself, being honoring of the things that I say are important to me and being, if we’re talking about boats, being the master of my own ship and deciding and I –
You might’ve been aware of this summer I had a real like revelation on the beach. I been away, I’d had some clients down at a condo I had on the ocean in Northern Oregon, on the Oregon coast. And it was the end of the week, and my kids who had been there and other friends who had dropped in, they were gone. My clients who had met me, they were gone.
And I had felt really weird all week. I’d felt a little bit off and I couldn’t put my finger on it. With a series of 15 people in and out that week. I just felt a little off, and so I was taking a walk and I was doing a Joe Dispenza meditation. And when he says, “now picture your future.” I was like, Nope, I’m actually going to think about what just happened this week.
I stood there at the beach and I was like, I’m opening my eyes. And I got this message that said, “if you don’t bring me peace, you don’t get a place.” And it like was a voice in my head, and it was a big voice. It was like a booming voice. And it was like, whoa, I got goosebumps. I heard that. It was really remarkable.
And I stopped and I turned and I faced the sun. It was just early in the morning. The sun was just coming up. And I heard it again, except it was one more, one more word.
“If you don’t bring me peace, you don’t get a place at my table.” And I took that really seriously. I’ve taken that very seriously.
So seriously in fact, I posted about it on Facebook and I did some videos, and I had one client who said, “I’m kind of afraid to contact you. Am I, do I bring you peace?” It’s okay. I promise you’re okay. If you didn’t, we would have a conversation, right. But that’s been a huge sorting tool for me that I’ve used for the past five months as I look at these opportunities. I look at different people, I look at different situations and that is my question. Do you bring me peace? Do you get a place?
Because if you don’t, I’m sorry, except for my children who don’t always bring me peace, but they’re my children, right? And I’m never going to exclude my kids from my table, but I’m just saying that again, that’s a prioritization of what’s important to me. And I, when I grew up that would’ve been like horrible. Like I would have been horrible for considering it, but I think it takes a lot of training and commitment to self care, which I didn’t even get.
When somebody who told me you need to practice more self-care. I was like, “I need to get my nails done? What are you talking about,” right? But now I get it. It’s like making sure that I’m, that I’ve got some balance, that I’ve got some happiness, that I have fulfillment in a number of realms, that when I start going over here, I’m aware enough to go, “whoa, kay. Let’s tip it back the other way.” Yeah.
Susi: Yeah. Thank you for that. I love refreshing the image of self care , just by being able to emphasize or illustrate it is exactly what you need it to be. It doesn’t have to be any of the fluffy, airy fairy stuff. It can be a walk around the block after your lunch break, before you power through the afternoon, it can be saying no to something that, even if half of you is like, “oh, that’d be fun.”
“Do I have the bandwidth? Does it light me up? Does it bring me peace?”
Robin: Yeah.
Susi: Getting clarity on those benchmarks is worth the time that it might take for that check-in.
Robin: I think so. So something that became really obvious to me, I want to say six years ago was this idea of open loops and things that drain me. And when I got wind of this, I think it was in a personal development course.
And wow. I was like, “Really that’s amazing.” And when I started working with these concepts that I’m going to talk about, I just saw some huge shifts, even in my ability to sleep through the night, in my my fear of missing out levels. My, just general anxiety, which, I don’t think I’m anxious, but once I figured some of this stuff out, like if I’m anxious, this can really help with that. So the thing is that we say yes to stuff. So this is all related to what we were just talking about. We say yes to things.
And we have said yes to things since we were young, right? This is nothing recent. This can go all the way back to when you were in high school or college. But we say yes to something, and then we realize that we can’t do the thing we said yes to. So it could be a thing – let’s just pretend you were in college. And somebody said, “Hey, Susi, I’m moving, can you help me load up my stuff in two weeks?” and then you’re like, “yeah, of course.” And then something happens and then the day goes by and you were off doing something else. And you’re like, “oh crap. I totally forgot!” And then you’re so embarrassed. You don’t say anything. And that’s called like an unspoken broken.
And my dear friend, Virginia Muzquiz helped me with that term. She’s like, oh, it’s an unspoken broken. I’m like, “actually, that’s exactly what it is.” I just walked away and I didn’t do something.
And so then let’s just say that happened, but then it’s a little bit later and something happens and let’s just say, you’re an adult and you’ve got kids and somebody asked you to do a bake sale. And you said yes, but the fact that you hate to bake, you just were standing with a bunch of other moms and everybody’s getting called on and like they’re, “what about you?” And you’re like, “okay. Yeah, sure. I’ll do that.” I hate to bake. (I actually love to bake, but just say you hate to bake) And, and now you’re committed to a bake sale and they’re expecting homemade stuff and you figure, there are 30 other moms there, I actually don’t need to do it.
So it’s another unspoken broken, right. And these things, big or small, they pile up, they can be really small things like returning a phone call, or following up with somebody that you said you would follow up with and you don’t do it. And what happens then with those things is that they don’t go away. Your brain holds that as something incomplete, it’s an incomplete and your brain just holds it for you.
But then let’s say you’re a business person and you buy somebody’s course with all the intentions of finishing it. So just to make you feel better, 97% of people who buy a course, never finish it. So you would be with the vast majority. However, your brain holds that as: it’s not done, it’s an incomplete.
So these incompletes start to bother you, on some level they’re bothering you. They’re draining your energy because literally your brain doesn’t want you to forget the stuff. And it will wake you up in the middle of the night and go, “Hey, do you remember that you needed to do that course” or, Hey, “you said you’d call your friend Karen, like two months ago” in the middle of the night, right?
Or you’re on the phone with your best friend named Karen when you think, “oh, I haven’t called Karen,” which is somebody I need to call again. She’s the secretary, I had, when I was first out of graduate school and I call her every November. So she’s on my mind right now.
But these things come in and interrupt. And they start to steal from us. They start to steal our time and our energy and our focus. They can distract us in the middle of things. Old things from years ago can pop up. If somebody called me now and said, “Hey, can you help me move?”
And I’m like, “Ooh, I forgot to help Erica move.” Right? 30 years ago, what the heck?
But, that’s what happens with our brains. So there are a few things we can do to help soothe that. So do you have questions about that though? Or do you notice that?
Susi: I think, what it’s making me think of is just the way that emotions kind of come back, take up bandwidth and come back, never at a great time, too. We don’t allow ourselves to recognize and process emotions, just acknowledge them and let them go.
They’re going to come back at usually the worst possible time, right? Exacerbate some stress or your response to a situation in a way that it doesn’t have to. So I love that, like that ‘lurking energy drain’. Definitely. And definitely the idea that you don’t want that to come back at the worst time, two o’clock in the morning. I totally picture that.
Robin: Terrible. I hate that. Yeah, you’re right. Same thing with emotions.
So these things are open loops. They’re things we just never cleaned up and now they’re active. They’re still active and they can get activated by conversations or smell that reminds you. I mean, it’s all of that, it’s just stored in here somewhere. And so I really am a huge fan of cleaning that stuff up and we had the same thing with ourselves too. And we can talk about how to clean up unspoken brokens or broken promises, commitments, and agreements that we have with ourselves too, because that’s equally as important as fixing it with other people. But I’ve noticed…
I have a couple of things that I do. So number one, if something does wake me up, I will get up and write it down.
Like this is bothering you. What conversation needs to occur so that this stops, and it could be a conversation with myself or somebody else. Let’s just say it is a conversation with somebody else and it always surprises people when I’ve done this, because most people don’t do it, and so they’re like, “wow. Where did that come from?” Especially if some time has gone by right. And I will mention my former secretary Karen. So she’s in her early eighties now, I’m sure. And she’s lovely. And we’ve kept in touch for all these years. I got a job out of graduate school and then I realized I’m not psychologically employable. And so I was there for a little while and I was like, I don’t like people telling me what to do, I need to leave. But it was a great job. Anyway, Karen and I’ve kept in touch and the agreement has been that I reached out to Karen because she’s always said “you’re so busy. You’re a mom, you’ve got a business. Why don’t you reach out to me.”
So, but some space in time went by, this was a few years ago. And so every time I heard her name, I was like, oh, dang, I need to call Karen. So finally I tried her several times and her voicemail wasn’t set up, but I finally got through and I just said to her, “Hey, Karen, we’ve had this agreement for years that I would call you a few times a year and I wanted to let you know that it’s the agreement that we had, isn’t really working for me. And so the impact it’s having on me is that I’m avoiding calling you because so much time has gone by that I’ve started to avoid you. And I don’t like that feeling. And I’d like to know if we can patch that up. And if we can come up with a different agreement moving forward. How would you feel about that? And I’m really sorry, by the way, what was the impact on you?”
This is what I’ve noticed. This is the impact it’s having on me. I’m hanging out away from you. I don’t want to call, I’m so embarrassed. What’s it been like for you?
And she said to me, “oh Robin, like I had no idea. I noticed you hadn’t called me, but I just figured you were busy and I am, I’m so sorry. Let’s find a different way of doing this so that it feels better.” And I was like, “thank you.”
So there was no anger. There was shock. She was shocked, like I would bring it up. And there was an agreement, a new agreement that we had that we would just do things differently moving forward. Now she calls me and I call her and we make sure we touch base a few times a year and that’s much better. I don’t feel guilty. And she feels more empowered to pick up the phone and call me. Right?
So I called her. I told her what I had noticed told her the impact it had on me asked how it was for her and asked her if she’d be interested in a new agreement.
So that could be something you do with anybody you’ve dropped the ball with. Hey, I did this thing. I’ve noticed this, the impact is this, would you like to renegotiate? And it could even be that you agree that you’re just finishing something like, “Hey, I said we were going to get together (I’m thinking of somebody else now) and walk three times a month and it hasn’t worked out. And the impact it’s having is I’m feeling kind of guilty and I’m also feeling stressed. I’m trying to figure it out. What about you? And would you like to renegotiate this?” And my friend might say, yeah, let’s not plan on it. Let’s just call when it works instead of scheduling it. Great. Or she could say, no, I don’t want to walk anymore. And I’d have to be okay with that.
I closed the loop. My brain is done with it, now it’s done. I can tell myself, okay, that’s off my list. And guess what, it’s off my list. It’s out of my mind. It’s not a thing.
Susi: I love that on so many levels, especially because again, it comes back to being aware of ourselves and how we’re behaving and responding taking action when it comes back up to the surface.
“Oh, that thing, maybe that’s why I’ve been avoiding her.” Right? That’s that really stood out for me, in that example that you shared when she reflects, oh, “I hadn’t heard from you in a while. I didn’t know what was up,” right? Because people can’t read our minds. Half the time we can’t read our own minds, and awareness is a powerful step.
And so, how empowering to be able to be open within a framework. And right, using those I statements, “this is how I feel.” “I noticed this.” “I’d like to renegotiate, how can we find something that suits both of us?” I can relate on so many of those different examples, getting together with people regularly and then things coming up and feeling guilty.
And certainly that avoidance afterward, what an energy drain and especially when social connection is strained right now, we don’t want to be taxing any of those relationships in that way.
Robin: Yeah, I have found that. And where I first started really practicing this is as a piano teacher. I’ve been teaching piano for 28 years or something crazy like that, and I had this rule, because I had a very big studio and I had a ton of students. I had a rule, which was my own, like I never say to somebody.
But if you, my student, popped into my head anytime when I’m not teaching you, I’ve got to have a conversation with you. There’s a conversation that needs to be had.
So if it’s Sunday afternoon and I’m playing with my kids and I’m like, “Susi. Hm. Why am I thinking of her right now? What’s up with that? What conversation do I need to have? Is there one,” right? And especially if my students woke me up in the middle of the night or disturbed me in any way, like I had a disturbing thought, then it would usually, there’d be a reason. I’d be like, “oh yeah. Because they didn’t pay this month. That’s why they’re on my mind. I need to resolve that once and for all.”
In a small town, we had everybody set up on auto-pay, but there are some people that didn’t, they’re like, I don’t, this was years ago, like “I don’t want to give my credit card information out,” which meant that they didn’t pay a lot of times. And then you go to the grocery store and they’d be like, “Hey, I owe you money.” Okay, can we just not, can we just not go there?
So I would try to, make sure those conversations just got handled because yes, like you said, there’s an avoidance, there’s a push pull. “Oh man, let’s just have the conversation be done with it and get back to happy.”
Especially when you’ve got students or clients that are coming in, you want to have a very clear, clean exchange. You don’t want to have any funky, weird stuff in the background.
Susi: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s a really important point too, especially in business relationships. So don’t only feel like it’s those close friendships or personal relationships that deserve this kind of attention, but also in our professional space.
Robin: For sure. Like, People paying before the, before their coaching month begins, whatever. Right? Just having that done, that’s just the way it goes, just was the same way with all of our students. You pay at the beginning of the month for the lessons that you will receive. That’s the exchange that we’re looking for here, because then we feel, all of our teachers, and we feel very free to invest in you because you’ve covered the basics.
And now that’s not even a thing, it’s not even on my mind. I don’t even think about money when I see your face.
Susi: Right. I can be fully present.
Robin: Right? Because that’s a really that is a deterrent. And I have found in the past feeling I can put my finger on name and time and date and all of that. Years ago, teaching Kinder Music, where I had a family who didn’t, they got out of sync on paying me, and then they went on a big ski trip with their four kids to Whistler, and then they came back and they’re like, “we’re a little behind. Can we catch up with you next month?” And I remember the resentment. I was like, “wow. Are you kidding?” so I don’t want to feel that. I want to love my clients. I want to love everyone around me.
I want it to be as clean as it can possibly be on all levels. I don’t care who you are, I just want it to be clean. And if it’s not, I’m going to come to you and clean it up. I’d say, “Hey, I totally dropped the ball on this thing. And the impact is I’m kind of embarrassed and I don’t feel like talking to you, but I really need to, because I value our friendship,” you know?
Just clean it up. Your brain will thank you.
Susi: And it makes me come back to the topic of boundaries, especially in that, professional aspect. We don’t want to be resenting. We don’t want to have that conflict or friction in the way when we’re present with someone. And so, again, getting clear on our values, where our boundaries are, and I think this is an important one that hasn’t occurred to a lot of people because well, and I’m always kind of enlightening people to the sneaky stressors, we get so used to carrying them around, not getting the best sleep or, fudging on the quality of food that we should be having. You know, but it doesn’t hurt that bad. Right. That load. And you mentioned earlier, having the bandwidth or capacity, when you consider, am I going to say yes, you don’t want something like this, occupying that space, compromising your capacity for the things that you do want to say yes to.
Robin: Absolutely. And it can impact us more than just being with that one person that we’re out of sync with. It’s no doubt having an impact on, I think it all has a ripple effect. I’ve noticed that when I feel badly about myself, right?
Let’s just say, it’s the holidays and I ate too much, my pants are tight. Well, I’m kinda not in the best mood and it’s not just impacting me. Most people would not even know my pants are tight. They just think I’m in a grouchy mood, right? It’s like, no, but that’s what happens. We have something and we feel a certain way. And we just, I’ve noticed with my grandson, James something happened where I, I was a little irritated and it wasn’t with him, but I caught myself speaking to him with a little tone in my voice and he caught it too. He’s like, “what’s wrong?”
And I was like, that’s interesting. Nothing. Nothing’s wrong with you. I just had a conversation that got me a little riled up James, and I’m sorry, I don’t mean to take it out on you.”
But where does this show up? Where we are. It is impacting the quality of relationships, all around us, not just this one. It’s kind of spreading itself out.
Susi: Yeah. Yeah. That ripple effect definitely is a factor that I think sometimes isn’t comfortable to get perspective on. So thank you for illustrating that. Because that’s one other thing that I noticed too, and people think, “oh no, it’s fine. I’m not too stressed out. I’m not pushing myself too hard. I’m not stretched too thin.’
Well, how are those relationships at home? Because things roll downhill. That’s the safe place. So sometimes that’s where you’re looking for something that’s happening elsewhere. That’s a, that’s a great illustration of that.
And I do, too, want to explore a little bit of your work with kids. I love the Quit Proof Kids and I think that to a degree ties in on the open loops and that sort of thing, but also really in the way in which we enter commitments. So love to hear your take on that.
Robin: So this is a huge, near and dear topic to me, Susi, because and my business is called Quitting Culture and Quit Proof Kids is one of my programs. Because as a mom and as a child, when I was child and as a teacher, I’ve observed an awful lot around the topic of quitting.
So what we were just talking about as part of the quitting thing, too, right? Ending quitting, closing loops, ending outstanding promises, agreements, commitments, all that. So I was just like closing the loop, that’s important. When it comes to kids, it’s a bit of a shift here, but I know from myself and observing thousands of kids over 25 years, that kids need to complete things in order to grow in confidence.
And what I mean is – and parents are the ones that have to help them, kids don’t know how to do this by themselves. Kids are incapable of keeping commitments. They’re just not, it’s like asking a baby to hold a bottle and finish it. Babies need somebody to hold the bottle while they drink. And it’s the same thing for kids.
They have no experience at all. What a commitment is, what it takes to get through it and all of that. So when parents have young kids and they put them in an activity. Again, there’s intention. There needs to be an intention there. What are we doing? Why are we doing it? What’s the outcome we’re looking for?
Are we looking for a skill to be learned? Are we looking to complete a duration? What is the outcome we’re looking for?
And I mentioned that because, we’re looking for, what is the outcome we’re looking for? And keeping our kids going until that outcome is achieved. So it could be I need to learn how to do cartwheels. So gymnastics teacher, my coach says it’s going to take me 12 weeks. Okay, great. We’re staying until you’ve accomplished that 12 weeks, and we’re high-fiving you and deciding, do we keep going? Is there a new skill or are you done?
It could be swimming lessons for six weeks. Okay. There’s no out. We’re six weeks in and then you’re out of the water and then we can decide what we’re doing. It could be a big goal. Like I want my child to, play the piano at a certain level. That’s years. That’s a different commitment.
But what I’ve seen is that when we let our kids quit before they’ve achieved one of those things, whatever it is, they don’t understand. They’re too young to understand what’s getting set up, but what’s getting set up was, “my parents let me quit. I must not be very good at it, or I was never good enough. And so they let me quit.”
They don’t really think I whined and cried so much, my parents let me quit. They’re not thinking that. That’s not the thing in their head. They’re thinking in their head was “I wasn’t good enough. Or my parents made me quit or I just didn’t like it. I wasn’t good enough.”
And if that happens repeatedly, those kids go on to be the moody teenagers who close their doors and don’t interact and don’t want to ever try anything new, don’t believe they’re good at things. They go on to be the grownups who they have their own businesses that never complete stuff and lack confidence.
I’ve just, I’ve watched it for almost 30 years and it’s like clockwork. You can predict it. I didn’t figure it out for a long time though, because I always coached my parents in my classes, because parents always came with the kids, “look, learning to play the piano is long-term relationship. Peaks, valleys, and plateaus, always changing. They’re going to like it. They’re going to hate it. They’re going to be okay. They’re going to love it. It’s going to be all over the place, but that’s natural and normal and there’s nothing wrong when they want to quit. You just have to decide what’s quitting point, but don’t quit in a valley.”
Susi: Don’t quit in a valley.
Robin: Don’t quit in a valley. Quit when you’re up here, but don’t quit when you’re down here. Right?
So I kept thinking, how am I getting all of these brilliant kids? Not only are they amazing at piano, but they’re winning like the national history fair, no kidding. They’re winning the state competitions. They play soccer there and diving, they do all these things and they do them well.
That’s because with every accomplishment, their confidence grew and they began to think, “wow. I’m actually good at everything. I’m good at anything,” because they accomplished, they hit goals, they were acknowledged for achievement, and then they set a new goal and they stayed even when it was hard until they hit that goal.
Right. It’s near and dear to my heart because it’s a real thing. And I want to help parents understand what do you, who do you need to be to help your kid grow in confidence? And so that, because that follows them for a lifetime. It’s not just when they’re six. It’s when they’re 16, when they’re 26, when they’re 56, it just follows us along.
Susi: Oh, my gosh, that is so profound because I think that we do, and I love that with your experience through teaching music, through, running the dance studio and those classes there, like you had a very unique perspective and seeing a huge spectrum of children, all very different: abilities, ages, levels of engagement, enthusiasm.
Robin: Yeah.
Susi: And so to kind of have your own study in the works, I love how you were able to see that. And I think that confidence is one of the biggest issues that we face. That dance.
You know, we struggle to have confidence and then we struggle with how much place our ego has in what we do and how we show up.
Robin: Right.
Susi: And I think when we want to make changes or we want to set goals, we want to push ourselves to grow. That negative self-talk can really hold us back. “Oh, who are you to think you can aim for that goal? Look at all these other examples of when you didn’t make it,” right. That little inner gremlin or saboteur can really get ahold of you.
And then we want to make little changes, like the way that we eat or the way, the level of activity that we engage in getting into exercise. Doesn’t have to be a big commitment, but just any kind of consistency there.
We’ve got all this proof (air quotes: proof) that we haven’t had continuity before. “We haven’t seen things through before. So why are we going to try this?” Oh.
Robin: It’s pretty huge. It really is. And then the other piece that is missing so often, especially for adults is our own acknowledgement of our progress. We don’t do it. I have a lot of my clients grab a piece of paper and a pencil and stick it on the refrigerator. A pencil, so it doesn’t run out of ink.
And just throughout the day, when you get something done, jot it down, jot down your wins. I don’t care if it’s: I ate better. I took a walk. I made that phone call. I cleaned the refrigerator. I don’t care, anything is a win. Start paying attention and acknowledging actually, what did you get done?
Cause it’s so funny. I do accountability coaching and my clients know now to come with a list. But at the beginning, they’re all, “I don’t think I had any wins this week.”
And I’m like, “well, you’re here. That’s a win. Like you made it to the phone call. That’s a huge win. Did you get out of bed every day? Did you eat, did you take care of yourself? Every single thing, let’s start there.
Let’s start with the little stuff that just seems like, well, duh, no, it’s not a duh, because some people struggled to get out of bed.” Right?
So how do we start building up what our brain is hearing us say, which is, “Hey, you did that,” like, good job. I finished a big project last night and I had to show it to James. I said “look what I did!” And he was like, “wow,” because he doesn’t get it. But he was like, “wow. What did you do?” And I was like, “I did all that.” and he was just like, okay.
But I want my brain to hear me acknowledging, celebrating. Sometimes I literally will be like, I’ll pat myself on the back “look at you. You did that thing. That’s amazing. Not everybody would do that thing.” So I’m a fan of doing that for our kids.
But one more quick thing about that. Super important. I read a book by Carol Dweck called Mindset several years ago. Changed the way I spoke to my kids and my students. No longer did anyone ever hear the words “you’re so gifted, you’re so talented. You’re just amazing.” Those words never will cross my lips.
The words are “wow. I see how hard you worked for that. Your commitment really paid. Look at the time you took to get that result, right?” The acknowledgement of effort goes way, way beyond just the acknowledgement of talent, natural ability.
Because a child can continue to make an effort, but a child can not just continue to try to be talented, right? Like you can’t make yourself more talented, but you can exert effort on something. And having that acknowledged, if you could have seen the difference in my kids, my own kids and my students. If you just said “Thomas,” that was one of my piano students, “oh my gosh. You’re like crazy talented,” he became perfectionistic.
So we switched that after I read the book because his mom was saying he’s really, he’s like crying after he gets things wrong at home. And I’m like, oh my gosh. And so we both, his mom and I go change. She’s saying, “wow, you’ve worked so hard on that. Haven’t you?” His little chest would puff up and he’d be like, “I did. I worked really hard.”
“Yeah. I can see that you were really committed to getting that figured out weren’t you.” Completely different. So when you acknowledge yourself or others acknowledged that effort, not the gift, the ability, the talent, the effort, because it took an effort and we can work on that.
Susi: Ooh. Oh my gosh, this is one to listen to again and again, there’s so much good stuff. And I’m thinking of the impact of neuroplasticity, right? When we let ourselves back off of things, break a commitment. We get into that pattern. “I don’t finish things. I don’t see things through.”
We’re hard on ourselves. And that I love your tip to keep a list on the refrigerator. “I did the dishes right after we ate and I didn’t wait until morning,” whatever it is, celebrate those wins. I’m a huge fan of celebrating the wins, but also you are teaching your brain, right? You’re leading yourself down that different path, and that is building that different connection and really reinforcing your ability to see things through.
So that’s so powerful. I don’t want to miss the opportunity though, because you have such generous gifts available for our audience. So please let folks know how they can keep on learning from your wisdom.
Robin: Thank you. Thank you. And I love you can tell I’m a nerd about this stuff. I just love it because it’s just impactful, right? It’s like, not that difficult, but super impactful in the quality of life and the joy and the happiness, which is what I’m all about.
So yeah, you’re welcome to go grab my gift called The CLEPTO Code: 6 Steps to Stop Stealing from Yourself. It is exactly what we’re talking about.
How do you identify what’s most important? And then. Open, close. Notice, identify, evaluate, and close the open loops that you have with yourself and others. And then step more into momentum on the things that are important to you. And it’s just, it’s super short. I’ve done it as a five day Facebook challenge. So the videos are short and sweet. Get it done in no time at all, and it can make a difference. So that’s there for you.
And then for the VIP’s, if you’d like to grab 50 minutes with me and just talk about like where this is sticky for you and where this looks hard or challenging, just jump on a call with me and we can talk through what parts of it seem like, “oh, God scary” or, “aagh.”
Because the thought of approaching other people and cleaning it up, isn’t necessarily like, oh, sure. I’ll do that. Or we’d be doing it all day long, right?
Susi: Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh. That’s so kind, like the gift of time is one of those things that’s just, truly is a gift. Is there anything else we’ve covered a lot of ground and a little bit of time. Anything else you want to share before we go?
Robin: Well, I think that, another thing to learn when you’re ready is how to identify things that you’ve done with yourself.
I didn’t even think about this for the longest time. Where have I let myself down? What commitments, promises, agreements have I made to myself and then find that I’ve somehow let those go? And how do you recover when you’ve done that? How do you let yourself off the hook so that you feel better about yourself?
So it’s important with others, but I think you’re just as important. So, if you want to have that conversation with me, reach out to me because that’s been a game changer for me as well.
Susi: Mm, I’m so glad you brought us back to that, because that stood out for me as well. When we were talking about those unspoken brokens and those open loops, and it’s so true, again, that it’s so easy for us to be hard on ourselves. And so don’t let that kind of disagreement or misunderstanding with yourself start to hold you back.
Robin: Right. 100%
Susi: Robin. Thank you so much. I loved this conversation. I’m so glad you were able to join me in the summit.
Robin: Ah, me too, Susi. Thank you. I can talk about this all day long. So, you’re like-minded people here, which makes it a fun conversation. So thanks so much for inviting me.
Susi: You’re so, so welcome. Take good care.
Robin: Thank you, you too. Bye.
